States of Mind
by AnneRG
Summary: After losing his twin in the Battle of Hogwarts, a grieving George Weasley is a ghost of his former self. But as months pass and he keeps pushing everyone away, it's time for Izzy Black to try and patch things up between them and maybe help piecing him back together. Sequel to 'Brave New Hope'.
1. Frustration

**Title: **States of Mind

**Author:** AnneRG

**Spoilers:** All Books

**Pairings:** George/OC, Harry/Ginny, Sirius/OC, Remus/Tonks, Ron/Hermione, others.

**Rating:** M (mostly in future chapters)

**Warning: **Read the prequels 'Finding Our Way', 'Brave New World' and 'Brave New Hope', first

**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling. In dreams, however, it's all mine...

**Summary:** After losing his twin in the Battle of Hogwarts, a grieving George Weasley is a ghost of his former self. But as months pass and he keeps pushing everyone away, it's time for Izzy Black to try and patch things up between them and maybe help piecing him back together. Sequel to '_Brave New Hope'._

**A/N: And so here is the long-promised sequel to the 'Brave New...' series. On the increased rating, I decided to classify this one as 'mature' due to the content I intend to add to future chapters. Now, you won't be showered with graphic sexuality and heavy profanity on a regular basis, but there may be more explicit (hopefully the tasteful kind) content at some point. **

**Enjoy!**

**21 December 1998**

Snow fell wildly outside from the pale grey sky, covering the whole extension of the Hogwarts grounds with a thick blanket of white.

In normal circumstances, Isabelle Black might have appreciated the snow, for the sake of a picturesque white landscape, which might be especially enjoyable to see during the more than eight hour-long train ride from Scotland to London that she was supposed to take in exactly twenty-five minutes. The thing was, it wasn't even ten in the morning yet and she was already having a really crappy day.

For starters, she'd accidentally slept in and woken up only half an hour before, which was something that just _didn't _happen to her – she hadn't slept in since… well, she couldn't even remember the last time she'd done that. Everyone who'd ever shared a room with her knew she was usually a breeze to wake up in the morning, which was why Ginny had been more than happy to leave their dorm shortly after shaking her awake, confident her friend wasn't that kind of person who'd just roll the other way once the wake-up call was over.

And then, because she'd still needed to mail a letter, she had to miss breakfast in order to go to the Owlery. Of course, she'd counted on there being owls in the Owlery, which didn't seem to be the case at the moment…

"Oh, this is just brilliant," she sarcastically said under her breath. Sure, it made sense that, since nearly every student was going home for the holidays, student-owned owls would be scarce but, Merlin, what were the odds of there not being a single school owl in the damn Owlery?! And how was she supposed to send a letter without an owl? "Bloody Christmas cards," she cursed, judging them as the culprit.

Leaving her trunk down on the lower level, she climbed her way up the circular staircase of the tower, trying to find an owl hiding out somewhere. She reached the top fuming and deeming herself out of luck… until she finally spotted a little owl cooped up behind a big bowl of birdseed. And by 'little' she meant really, really small – even smaller than Ron's own owl, Pig, which was hard to achieve.

She eyed it sceptically for a moment before reaching for her letter. "Hey, little guy – do you reckon you can carry this all the way to London?" she asked the little owl, even though she was fairly sure it wouldn't be able to understand what she was saying.

The owl let out a little hoot and climbed onto the edge of the bowl of food, apparently eager to take the letter.

Izzy took that with a shrug. "Good enough," she gave in, handing the little owl a treat she'd been carrying around for that sole purpose before she attached the letter to its beak. Once the owl was gone, she made her way back down the staircase and grabbed her trunk, running through the snow headed towards the path leading to the gates with it on a tow.

She was about half-way there when she spotted a flame-haired shape running in her direction.

"_Izzy, what the hell?!_" Ginny yelled from a distance the moment she saw her too. "_Where have you been? The train leaves in fifteen minutes!_"

"I was sending an owl," she shouted back.

"_You were sending an owl when the train leaves in fifteen minutes!?_"

"Actually, it was leaving in over twenty minutes when I went to send it," Izzy replied. "I couldn't find a school owl – they were all gone flying Christmas Cards to people or something."

Ginny rolled her eyes just as her friend reached her and started walking alongside her. She grabbed a hold of the trunk as well and helped her friend pulling it behind them. "Merlin, Izzy, couldn't you have shrunk this?"

"I could but it just happens that I got distracted and packed my wand into the trunk," Izzy told her. "And don't try to do it yourself. Wands are not…"

"Wands are not affected by shrinking charms, so if I shrink the trunk, it will probably crush your wand to pieces," Ginny finished for her. "I know that – I'm not an idiot. And packing your wand in your luggage? Missing breakfast too? What's up with you this morning?"

"I slept in."

"You don't _sleep in_."

"Well, I did today," Izzy replied. "You know I was up late last night."

Ginny huffed. "Yeah, you were finishing the letter. Honestly, Izzy, it was a _letter_, not a report due today – what on Earth were you losing sleep over it for?"

"I wanted to send it this morning. I always send them…"

"On Saturday mornings. I know. But it won't kill him if you send it Saturday night instead, when you'd have had plenty of time to finish it during the train ride and an owl waiting for you at home. And, by the way, didn't it occur to you that sending an owl from London to London on a Saturday night would probably reach him at the same time as – or possibly earlier then – a letter sent from Scotland to London on a Saturday morning?" Ginny pointed out.

Izzy frowned. "Well, I was in too much of a hurry to think of that," she admitted as they walked. "I just didn't want him to be expecting the letter and it not arriving…"

"He doesn't deserve it that you care about that – he never answers!" Ginny told her.

Izzy sighed. It had taken her a lot of time to get to the point – the point when she even dared to try and get in touch with George.

She hadn't been within a hundred feet of him since Fred's funeral. Being grounded all summer had kept her mostly indoors, giving her plenty of time to think of things and eventually realize that there was no use in wallowing. If she'd broken George, she should at the very least do something to try and fix him – of course, for that to happen she'd need to at least manage to speak to him and apologize. However, by the time she'd been enough off the hook to be allowed to go to Diagon Alley with her parents and the Weasleys, George always seemed to be suspiciously missing from the shop even though everyone said that he was pretty much drowning himself in work over there. That and the fact that he never even came to the Burrow anymore convinced Izzy that he was probably avoiding his family.

So, once it had been time for Hogwarts and she still hadn't had a chance to apologize to him, writing had been her only chance. The first letter had been the single one she'd mentioned Fred's death on, as part of her apology for her words the day of the battle. The following ones – weekly ones – had been very different. She just wrote about little things, all sorts of stuff that went on at Hogwarts, rumours that went around, Ginny's antics as Quidditch captain, weird things that would happen… summing up, the kind of things he used to tell her about when the Carrows ruled the school and he'd been the one on the outside looking in – things that had always made her feel safe and hopeful.

The lack of answer from him had been hurtful at first but, at some point, she'd stopped taking it so hard – the letters just sort of became a journal to her and she found comfort in knowing that, even if he was still too pissed off at her to answer, there was a chance those words might be giving him a bit of normalcy big enough to make him feel somewhat better. She was trying to fix what she'd done and, as long as there were still miles between them, that was all she could do.

"I never ask him to," Izzy told her friend, waving at Hagrid thrugh the falling snowflakes, who seemed to be chatting with Flitwick, as they crossed the gates.

"You shouldn't have to! It's the polite thing to do. I'm not a politeness buff but I assure you that if someone had been writing me weekly for three months – writing bloody five-page letters, by the way – I wouldn't have the nerve not to answer even with a 'thank you'. He's being an arse."

"He's got a shop to manage," Izzy replied.

"Don't you give me that. He can manage five minutes to write a couple of words if he bothers to try," Ginny pointed out. "If it were Harry, I swear I'd have sent him a howler already. Or just stopped writing until he remembered owls flew both ways."

"Well, that might work for Harry, since he's your boyfriend and he doesn't want you angry at him, but that's not the case with George," Izzy sadly pointed out. For all she knew, he was the one still angry at her…

"It sure as hell didn't seem that way when you two were smooching literally behind my back during the battle," Ginny replied. She stopped walking for a moment and waited for Izzy to do the same. "What the hell happened between then and now?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Izzy said.

"You've been telling me that every time I asked for the past seven months and I'm kind of getting sick of pretending I'm okay with that. Because I'm not," Ginny assured her. "Look at you – you're miserable half the time. _He_'s miserable and unfortunately not just half the time. And I'd like to know why. So what happened?"

"Fred died," Izzy said.

Ginny sighed, feeling the pang hearing that always caused in her hear. "I know he did. But that doesn't explain why you act as if you killed him yourself every time someone brings up how George is dealing. Or _not_ dealing."

"Ginny, the train is leaving in eight minutes. We don't have time for this," Izzy told her.

"Fine. We'll walk and talk, then. But I want to hear it. Because I seriously cannot be held responsible if I end up hexing it out of you before the day ends," Ginny warned her.

Izzy sighed as they resumed talking. "It's bad," she warned. That had been the reason she'd never told her friend what had happened – she was ashamed of what she'd done. She'd used a newly-deceased Fred against George. It had been a horrible thing to do.

"It can't be that bad. You're not a mean person," Ginny assured her.

"I was that day. I threw it at his face, Ginny," she said.

"Threw what at his face?"

"Fred! His death. George was… frozen by it. He just wouldn't move and the Death Eaters were coming, so I got desperate and I threw Fred at his face: that he was gone and being frozen in place wouldn't bring him back and that he owed it to him to fight for himself," she said. "It worked, but he was so angry afterwards… and now he's taking it out on everyone. Because of _me_."

Ginny stopped again, letting go of the trunk's handle and eyeing her in disbelief for about ten seconds. "Are you mad? He's taking it out on everyone because he lost his twin brother and his best friend and his business partner and his partner in crime all rolled up into one, not because you made him face facts and get off his arse," her friend told her immediately. "You did what you had to do. You did nothing less than I would have done if I had to."

Izzy huffed in disbelief, resuming walking with the trunk behind her, mindful of the time. "No, you wouldn't. You were crushed as well, Ginny," she said as her best friend followed after her.

"Not as crushed as I would have been if I'd lost two brothers instead of one," the redhead stated as she resumed walking alongside her friend. "Look, if to save someone you have to kick it first, then kick them as hard as you have to. It's called tough love – it stings but you have to use it sometimes, so don't blame yourself for it."

She sighed. "Well, the fact that he hasn't been answering my letters at all might indicate _he_ does."

"Good thing we're going back to the real world, then, because now you've got plenty of opportunity to go to him face to face and straighten it out: if he _does_ blame you for it, he's an idiot; if he doesn't _you're _an idiot for thinking he did for so long."

Izzy sighed and chose not to respond to that. Soon, the Hogsmeade train station was in sight, where both the Hogwarts Express and a rather annoyed Minerva McGonagall could be spotted.

"I see you were able to find her, Miss Weasley," the headmistress said to Ginny as she watched the two girls pass by. "Cutting it close, aren't we, Miss Black?"

"Sorry, Professor," Izzy apologized. "It won't happen again."

"I surely hope not," McGonagall replied as the girls lifted the trunk and loaded it into the train ahead of them. "You might not be so lucky to arrive just in time next time around."

"I'm aware of that, Professor," Izzy assured her.

McGonagall nodded. "Good. Well, ladies, you'd better hurry inside. And do have an enjoyable Christmas."

"You too, Professor," Ginny said in return just before she and Izzy climbed into the train, only seconds before the railway guard closed the train's door behind them.

They'd barely taken a step down the aisle between the compartments and were already being accosted by a rather frazzled Hermione.

"Where have you been?! I was starting to think you wouldn't make it!" the Head Girl told them.

"Well, we did, so you can relax," Ginny quickly assured her brother's girlfriend. "Do you know which compartment Luna is in?"

Hermione nodded. "Yeah, it's at the end of the next carriage. I'll take you there," she said, gesturing for them to follow her. "So, what happened? Why were you so late?" she asked, looking back at Izzy as she walked.

"I slept in," Izzy said lamely.

The older girl sighed. "Well, no wonder. I woke up at midnight last night and you still weren't in bed."

"I was busy," Izzy protested. "Can we all just acknowledge that I am usually the first one up and leave my bedtime alone?"

"That's exactly why we should not leave your bedtime alone. You're sleeping too little – Muggle medical studies say…"

"Hermione, for Merlin's sake don't start quoting Muggle medical studies on us," Ginny begged her as Hermione opened the gangway connection's door for them to cross into the next carriage. "Besides, it's the Hogwarts Express! It's not like McGonagall would leave her stranded here. What's the worst thing that could happen? Seriously – tell us. You know school rules by heart."

"Well, for one she'd get detention. It's mandatory to take the Hogwarts Express home unless your parents or guardians say otherwise," Hermione explained, crossing the connection herself and closing the other door behind her. "Then, odds are she'd contact her parents and get them to appara…" she paused suddenly, clearing her throat as if to disguise the word. "Take her home. I meant take her home by any means of travel they prefer."

Izzy stopped, making a frustrated sound as she turned on her hell. "Oh, for the love of Merlin, Hermione. _Apparate_. My head is not going to explode if I hear that word or any other somehow related to apparition. Why does everyone act like it will?"

"People don't want to upset you. It's only been three weeks since… you know,_ the incident,_" Hermione said, hesitating again.

"You mean the one when I splinched myself so badly during apparition lessons that I had to spend five days in St. Mungo's?" Izzy supplied.

"Well, yes," her friend said. "It's bound to be a little traumatizing."

Izzy sighed. "How many times do I need to say this? I am not traumatized. I won't freak out over hearing the word 'apparition' mentioned around me. I fell on my face and knocked myself out before I even realized what had happened, so every time someone tells me what happened it's like you're telling me someone else's story. I have no problem with apparition itself – it just so happens that I'm so bad at it that I am the only person in decades to get kicked out of apparition classes for a reason other than misbehaving."

"Technically speaking, you weren't kicked out," Ginny pointed out. "Wilkie Twicross just thinks it's better for you if you take a little break before trying your hand at apparating again. I heard him telling McGonagall that he's convinced 'something is blocking your ability to concentrate on the task'. Now that I think of it, I can think of a thing or two that might be bothering you these days," she said, referring to her best friend's situation with her brother.

"Ginny is right. This is exactly why they usually start teaching apparition in sixth year even to students not of age yet – seventh years are just too stressed because of the NEWTs," Hermione said, completely missing the point Ginny was referring to. "Honestly, I'm barely able to focus on anything other than them right now – just thinking all your future can depend on one test…"

"Hermione, you've got an Order of Merlin First Class over the fact that you spent a year chasing down Horcruxes and are among the three people who contributed the most to save the Wizarding World," Ginny told her. "I'm pretty sure you could get any job you liked even if you flunked every single NEWT you took."

"Don't even joke about that!" Hermione said, completely outraged over Ginny's tempting of fate about something as important as the NEWTs.

"She's got a point," Izzy agreed. "Harry didn't take a single NEWT and he's already training to be an Auror. And Ron didn't come to finish his last year either and he also has a standing invitation to enter the academy."

Hermione couldn't help letting out a huff about that matter. As much effort as she'd placed on that battle , she'd lost in in the end, being the only one of the three choosing to go back to Hogwarts. So, defeated once more, she went for a quick escape. "Oh, is that the time?" she said, feigning surprise as she took a look at her watch. "I should go – I have a prefect meeting in ten minutes, so I should really go and get ready..." she excused herself. "Luna's in the second to last compartment. I'll see you both in London," she declared, already making her way back to the gangway connection so she could head to the prefects' carriage.

"Well, that was subtle," Ginny commented.

"You know she's sensitive about Harry and Ron having skipped on their last year," Izzy pointed out as she reached the compartment Hermione had indicated and slid the door open. "Hi, Luna," she greeted her friend when she spotted her reading the Quibbler.

"Oh, good. You made it," the blond girl said with a smile. "I was starting to think I'd have to spend the whole train journey alone."

Pitiful as Luna's words sounded, they made both Izzy and Ginny sigh, knowing they were probably true. She might be, for all intents and purposes, a hero, yet people still tended to avoid spending long stretches of time around Luna due to her... oddness. "I'm sure you'd have found someone to spend it with," Izzy told her despite it at the same time as she lifted her trunk onto one of the empty seats, opening it in search for her wand.

"It'll be a year tomorrow," Luna said, very casually.

The two girls looked at her in confusion. "A year since what?" Ginny asked.

"Since we took the train to go home last year," she said, apparently still reading the magazine.

Izzy and Ginny looked at each other, suddenly reminded of the meaning of it. It had been a year since Luna had been snatched and held hostage by Death Eaters. That was something they rarely ever mentioned – Luna didn't seem particularly haunted by the event and they liked to believe that wasn't just an act from her part. Truth was, she seemed so okay that they didn't have it in them to disturb her by mentioning it.

Izzy sighed. "It's not going to happen again, you know? The war is over now," she assured her friend as she remained elbow-deep in clothing and personal items, still no sign of the wand.

"And even if it wasn't, no way we'd let them set things up again so you'd be on your own," Ginny stated. "They'd have to go through the two of us to get to you. And, trust me, we'd give them a good run for their money, wouldn't we, Izzy?"

"Defenitely," she agreed.

Luna looked up from her magazine and smiled at the two girls. "That's nice," she said mildly, sounding – in a true Luna fashion – slightly surprised they'd do that for her.

Satisfied, Ginny cleared her throat. "Well, now that this is settled, any suggestions about what to do for the next eight or so hours?"

"Well," Izzy started. "You can start by helping me figure out where the hell my wand is," she suggested.

* * *

Later that day, as the train started to approach the outskirts of London, in the lively Wizarding district of Diagon Alley – more specifically in the storage area of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes – George Weasley busied himself with work, as he constantly did these days.

One might say he was being a bit of a stickler by checking the stock of every product for the third time that day but it was, in fact, more about having an excuse to avoid the crowd filling the shop upstairs than being a perfectionist. It wasn't that he'd suddenly gained a phobia of crowds or anything – he just was painfully aware that in the middle of a crowd he could easily be snuck up on by a family member or concerned friend who'd give him the same speech as usual, asking him how he was dealing, offering a listening ear, all the whole hoping to achieve some sort of breakout moment when he'd suddenly decide to move on from constantly grieving Fred.

Just thinking of that made George huff. Sometimes he deeply regretted not having packed up and moved somewhere far, far away the moment his twin was put to the ground. Where, he didn't care: Swaziland, Tibet, aome deserted island near the Falklands… As long as it was far enough and remote enough that no one would follow him there, it was fair game to him.

It wasn't much to ask, was it? That people just left him alone. He wanted to grieve – he didn't want to talk about it, he didn't want to be coddled because of it. It wasn't like he'd ceased functioning at all: he still fed himself, he bathed, he shaved, he worked… He was still the owner of a very lucrative business – the shop might have, same as him, lost a bit of its soul along with Fred, but it still stood, successful as ever. Sure, he'd had some help on that front: Remus, Lee, Verity and, more recently, Ron did work at the shop too and, for one, most of the time they seemed to have gotten the message that he just wanted to be left alone and acted accordingly. Then again, he'd made it very clear to all of them the moment he'd reopened the shop.

He was brought back from his thoughts by the sound of his name being called. Ron, he identified the voice as he walked towards the adjoining corridor formed by the many storage shelves.

"Anything you need upstairs?" George asked as he saw his brother approaching.

Ron shook his head. "No, it's just… it's half past five," the younger boy announced.

George looked confused. "So?"

"I told you I needed to leave at half past five," Ron told him. "I'm supposed to meet Hermione at Platform 9 ¾ in half an hour."

"If you'd already told me that, why did you need to come down here now? You could have just gone," his older brother pointed out to him.

Ron shrugged. "I guess. But I was wondering… well, I was thinking you could come too. Ginny and Izzy are coming in the Hogwarts Express too, you know? You might like to see them," he suggested.

The unexpected mention of Izzy nearly made him flinch. He made himself ignore the feelings that threatened to come along, though. He told himself not think of her at all, which didn't seem to work all that much. "Can't. I've got to finish this," he stated.

Ron sighed. "You know, working all the time is not exactly healthy…"

George gave his brother a warning look. "Ron, do you recall the one rule I set when I said you could come and work here?" he asked.

His brother gulped. "'Nagging will get you sacked'," he quoted him.

"You're getting dangerously close to making that rule relevant," George warned him.

Ron responded with another gulp. "Okay… But there's something else I've got to ask and please don't sack me for it because it's just a question and Mum told me to ask it. She'll have my hide if I don't."

"What?" George asked in annoyance.

"She wants to know if you're staying for the night on Christmas Eve or if you're leaving and coming back in the morning. She needs to know if she should get your old room ready for you," he explained.

George tensed. "When did I say I was going to the Burrow for Christmas?" he asked.

Ron gaped at him. "You've got to be kidding me, George," he said in disbelief. "Where else would you spend Christmas?"

"Nowhere," he replied.

"Nowhere? It's _Christmas,_ for Merlin's sake. You can't celebrate it on your own!"

"Then good thing I don't plan to celebrate it at all," he said, to his brother's shock.

"That's mad, George! That's completely bonkers! Christmas is when families are supposed to be together," Ron told him.

"Well, then I guess it's not just up to me that it won't happen this year because I won't be the only one _gone_," George spat back, referring to his late twin's absence as he walked away, set on resuming the task he'd be been taking care of before.

Ron went after him, though. "Look, you know…"

"Nagging, Ron," his older brother warned him. "Watch the nagging."

The younger redhead pressed his lips together in fury but decided not to press it. Clearly arguing wasn't going to work. He had to think of something else later. "Fine," he mumbled. "So, you're not going home for Christmas this year."

"No," George confirmed.

"That's what you want me to tell Mum?" Ron asked.

George shrugged. "Tell her whatever you want. In any case, I'm not going. She should probably be told in advance."

His brother frowned. "Well, if that's what you want… I just hope you know what this is going to do to her." And, with that, he was gone, closing the door with a bang a few seconds later when he was already out of sight.

Left alone in the room all over again, George just sighed, trying not to think of his brother's words. He couldn't go – that was a simple fact in his mind. He couldn't stand the idea of just being there and having everyone patting his shoulder and telling him everything was going to be okay when he knew it wasn't. Fred was gone and he was never coming back. And, no matter how hard he tried, he knew he was never going to stop missing him. He was never going to stop looking over his shoulder trying to find him and he was never going to tell a joke without expecting him to continue it. They were never going to be a team again… And knowing that killed him just a little. So, the last thing he wanted was to have people nagging him and patronizing him by telling him it was going to be okay. The last thing he wanted was to have Izzy Black being one of these people – because, of course, she _was_ going to be there –, as if her weekly letters weren't enough nagging for him to ignore.

So, still frustrated with everyone else, mainly Ron at the moment, he went back to looking at the clipboard he was still holding and went back to his task. Work seemed the one thing keeping him sane at the moment.

* * *

The moment she stepped foot out of the Hogwarts Express, Izzy had about two seconds to reach down in order to avoid being tackled to the ground by a short, black haired hurricane running straight to her legs and take a hold of him instead.

Her little brother, always pleased to see anyone with a familiar face, especially those particularly keen about spoiling him, shouted her name out loud and let out a squeal as she lifted him up from the ground and spun him around a couple of times. "Hello there, little monster," she greeted the boy with a smile.

Alex giggled. "'m not a little monster," the little boy protested, despite the cheery tone in his voice.

"Really? So you've been teaching Mary to always call Lulu 'Gran'?"

Alex dutifully nodded.

"Does it drive her insane?"

The boy nodded again. "She says it makes her old. Will she get all shrivelled if I call her Gran lots of times?"

Izzy chuckled. "Give it a try and see for yourself," she dared her little brother just before hearing her father clearing his throat.

"So, what's the meaning of this?" he asked, trying to sound very appalled. "You land your eyes on the little bugger and all of a sudden the bloke both of you owe your existence to is chopped liver?"

She rolled her eyes. "I've just seen you yesterday, Dad."

"So? Honouring your elders should be a daily task," he replied.

"Well, my apologies, then – the parade must be running late. I think I'll have to ask for my money back," she replied sarcastically.

"Don't sass me, young lady. Keep in mind that I have already more than proven my worth in the grounding area," he reminded her before turning to Ginny, who was just leaving the train after his daughter. "So, ladies, how did the train ride treat you?"

Ginny shrugged. "It was fine. Long. Anyway, is Harry back yet? Do you know if he passed?" she asked, referring to his survival training test, which he'd been taking for the past five days. From what he'd told her before he'd gone, the blokes at the Auror office were supposed to have dumped him somewhere remote, where he was supposed to fend off on his own for five days without any magic. Few passed at the first try, but Harry's experience with being on the run was certainly a point in his favour.

Sirius shook his head. "No idea. He was still gone when I came here. It shouldn't be too long, though. Oh, and by the way, Mia invited you over for dinner if you want. That way you'll have plenty of time to catch up with the man himself."

Ginny looked hesitant. "I'd love to but Mum will probably want me to stick around for today," she said apologetically. "You know how she's been like lately…"

Sirius nodded in acknowledgement. "Oh, well, the invitation stands," he assured her.

"I'll try and talk her and Dad into letting me coming by after dinner for a little while," the redhead said, starting to look around the crowd. "Speaking of which, where _is _my Dad?"

"Around here somewhere. I saw him talking to Ron before," Sirius stated, searching for him as well. "Ah, there they are," he announced as he saw the two other redheads cutting through the crowd.

"Ginny girl!" Arthur called, smiling at his daughter as he approached her and wrapped her up in a big fatherly hug.

Ron followed his father silently, looking rather grave, something his sister didn't miss.

"What's wrong?" Ginny asked, pulling away from Arthur.

"Nothing," Ron unconvincingly replied.

"Liar," she accused him.

"It's nothing you need to worry about, Ginny," her father confidently assured her. "We'll tell you about it later. Now, I believe Ron has a girl he wants to see as well…"

"Oh, right," Ron mumbled, suddenly reminded of his girlfriend. "Where did Hermione go?"

Izzy cleared her throat. "'The Head Students' duties include searching the train for forgotten objects. They have to be the last person in and out of the train'," she quoted her friend. "Did that sound like I was channelling her? Because that's what I was aiming for."

"So, she's still inside?" Ron asked, receiving a nod in return. "I think I'm going in, then. Don't wait for me." And, with that, he disappeared into the train."

Soon after, Luna came by to say goodbye to them and the platform started to empty. After Arthur left with Ginny and Ron exited the train with Hermione, Sirius was left alone with Izzy and Alex. "So," he started, reaching out to hold his son's hand. "I was thinking we could walk home today. It's just twenty minutes on foot and it's not a half-bad day."

Izzy raised an eyebrow. "Is that some subtle attempt to spare my 'frail mind' from the trauma of just apparating? Because I can take it. How many times do I need to say this for people to believe?" she said.

"Who said anything about apparition? Can't a guy just be eager to show his daughter the Christmas lights without being accused of having ulterior motives?" he asked before nodding down at Alex. "Come on, the more tired we get this little bugger, the easier it will be to put him to sleep tonight."

His daughter let out a sigh. "Well, I suppose if it's about that…" she said before reaching for her newly-found wand and shrinking her trunk to a size small enough that it would fit into her pocket. "So, how did you manage to leave the house with just Alex? Didn't Mary want to come too?" she asked as they headed to the platform's disguised exit.

"She took a late nap today. In my defence, I tried to wake her but she just growled at me in her sleep," he told her.

"Wonder which side of the family she got that from…" Izzy mumbled.

"Hey, I resent that!" Sirius protested as he reached down to pick Alex up just as they arrived at the exit. He then took a peak through the wall-disguised passage and gestured for Izzy to follow once he was sure nobody was paying attention.

They barely had a chance to exchange words as they bumped their way through the many rush-hour commuters filling the busy station. It wasn't until they took a side exit from the station and found themselves in less crowded surroundings that Sirius allowed himself to put his son back on the floor and let him walk on his own, his hand firmly attached to his older sister's.

It was a sweet sensation, being able to walk outside again without deathly fear, Izzy couldn't help noticing – half a year before, stepping foot out the door was all but daring death itself to come and pay a visit. Sure, there were still Death Eaters at large, hiding away from the law, but it seemed that every week the Prophet announced yet another one had been caught – at that moment there were maybe a dozen still walking free but, judging by the lack of Death Eater attacks, those were far too busy hiding their arses to go around bothering people. At the end of it all, they were free – and just thinking of that was enough to lift her spirits.

"So, Dad," Izzy started. "Now that it's safe to be outside and that I'm of age and not grounded anymore, I hope you realize that I don't plan to stay cooped up at home all the time anymore," she pointed out to her father as they walked.

Her father raised one eyebrow at her. "You've been seventeen for barely a week and you're already you're pushing boundaries? I should have locked you up in a tower when I had a chance."

"As if I wouldn't have found a way to escape," she replied.

Sirius let out a long-suffering sigh. "Well, I'm not going to hold you hostage but keep in mind that as long as you live under my roof, you're supposed to obey certain rules, no matter how old you are. Such as only going out at decent hours and not venturing into dingy places like Knockturn Alley…"

"Oh, come on. I was told Knockturn Alley had the best place to buy the cursed watch I was planning to give you this Christmas."

Sirius narrowed his eyes. "Planning to collect your inheritance early, hum?"

"Well, I'd better hurry before you and Mum get me another sibling and chop up my inheritance even more than you already have," she replied as they entered a tunnel passing under St. Pancras station's train tracks.

He gaped at her for a moment. "Is it too late to give you up for adoption?"

"I'm pretty sure that's called disowning at this point."

Her father seemed to consider it for a moment. "That may not be such a bad idea." He looked down at his son. "Hey, mate, do you want your sister's share of the dough?"

"What's doh?" Alex asked.

"It's cookies before they're baked," Izzy informed him, bringing a huge smile to the little boy's face.

"That's not the kind of dough I'm referring to," Sirius pointed out.

And, just like that, the smile was gone. "Why not?" Alex asked, disappointed.

"Because this is the kind you can use to buy cookies that are already baked instead," Sirius offered.

"Why would he want to buy ready-baked cookies when Kreacher does it so much better?" Izzy asked, her little brother nodding in agreement as she spoke.

Sirius sighed. "There's no way I'm going to win this argument, is there? He's always going to agree with you, as long as you're the shiny new thing around."

"That's probably right," Izzy replied.

They went on bickering as they made their way home, only stopping for a few minutes at Alex's usual playground so he could take a few trips down the slide and have a couple of rounds on the swings.

They were just arriving at the streetlight-iluminated street of Grimmauld Place when they saw a familiar-looking auror exiting number 12.

"Oi, you with the pink hair," Sirius called, catching Nymphadora Tonks's attention just as Alex let go of Izzy's hand in order to run towards his makeshift aunt.

The metamorphagus greeted the boy with a hug and the usual 'Wotcher' as Izzy and Sirius approached. "You know, this colour is actually called 'mauve'," she pointed out to Sirius as she placed her husband's godson back on the floor.

Sirius snorted. "Do you keep a collection of colour swatches so you can choose exactly which colour of hair you'll wear for the day?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. Remus and I keep'em in a hat. We pull one at random every morning unless I'm feeling strongly about a colour in specific," she replied.

Sirius gave her a look – he wasn't sure if she was joking or actually telling the truth. He wouldn't put it past her. "So, can we safely assume that you being here means Harry's back?" he asked her.

"Well, someone had to make sure the Saviour of the Wizarding World made it home safely since he was so sleep deprived he could barely keep his eyes open," Tonks pointed out. "They're always brutal, those survival tests. Dump a bunch of kids in the middle of nowhere with no wand, no food and no shelter, throw in a few threat simulations and expect them to fend for themselves for a week… most fail, you know? I was lucky Dad took me camping Muggle-style often – he thought the Wizarding world's answer to camping was an insult to 'actual camping'. And, believe it or not, it gives you an edge on the whole outdoors part."

"But what about Harry? Did he pass?" Izzy asked.

"After spending a year on the run from Death Eaters? Do you even need to ask? Of course he did. With flying colours," Tonks informed her. "He's officially done with Auror Academy and after New Year's he's all mine."

"All yours? You mean you're his trainer now?" Sirius asked.

"Yep. There aren't that many people in the office who can train the great Harry Potter without being all starstruck – it's basically just me and Kingsley, actually, but since Kingsley is really busy lately with all the Death Eater trials, it falls onto me." She let out a pleased sigh. "Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting to get a sucker to dump all my paperwork on? Best Christmas gift ever."

"Hey! Don't you dare make my godson your paperwork slave!"

"Don't _you_ dare mess with the Auror office's circle of life," she replied. "I was Mad-Eye's paperwork slave, now Harry's my paperwork slave and one day he's going to have a paperwork slave of his own. It's nature at it's best," she said in a wondrous tone before checking her watch. "Well, I'd love to stay and chat but I've got to go and pick up Teddy from day-care before he starts thinking I've forgotten all about him." She reached down to place a kiss on top of Alex's head. "See you guys around," she said before walking towards the nearest alley, from where she presumably disapparated.

Still on the front porch with only Alex and Izzy, that was Sirius's cue to head to the house's door and open it for all of them to enter.

"_Sirius, is that you?" _they heard Mia calling the moment Sirius closed the door behind Izzy, who gently pushed Alex in front of her.

"Yes, love," he shouted back, just as the sound of steps down the stairs reached their ears. "Were you expecting someone else?"

They heard her chuckling, her voice sounding closer than before. "_Wouldn't you like to know?" _she said. "_You've just missed Tonks_. _She came by drop Harry off._"

"I know. We were just talking to her outside," Sirius informed her as Izzy started climbing up the stairs.

On her way up, Izzy watched as her mother appeared at the top of the stairwell, holding Mary on her hip. "Hi, honey. Did you have a nice journey?"

Izzy shrugged when she reached the top of the stairs too. "It was the same as always," she said, reaching to place a kiss on her little sister's chubby cheek. Cheerful as always, the nearly two-year-old giggled and said her name, though it sounded more like 'itch' than 'Izzy'. "No one tried to kidnap me this time," she added to her mother, who sighed.

"Well, that's always positive," Mia offered.

"Is he upstairs?" she asked, referring to Harry.

Her mother nodded. "In his room. Don't be surprised if he's already fallen asleep, though. He looked exhausted. Speaking of which, is Ginny coming?"

"Not until after dinner," Sirius replied for Izzy as he guided his son up the stairs by the hand and, upon reaching the top, let go of the little boy and reached over to place a very casual and very quick kiss on his wife's lips.

It might not be a particularly traumatizing kiss to witness, but the act alone still drove Izzy to leave the premises as soon as she saw it coming. On her way up to her bedroom, she heard a vague mention of 'bath time' downstairs, which sent Alex running on the opposite direction, shouting 'no', as their father chased after him.

She entered her room, and removed her shrunken trunk from her pocket, returning it to its usual size. Then, she exited the room again, vowing to unpack her luggage later as she headed into Harry's. She found the door half-open, only taking a little push for it to open up, revealing the pitiful picture of her brother fully-dressed and with shoes still on lying face-down across the bed.

"You alive in there?" she asked.

His response was some kind of jumble of words muffled by the covers.

"Come again?"

He turned his face to the side just enough so his voice would come freely. "I said I didn't think so_,_" he clarified.

"Nice," she replied walking further into the room. "I get to keep your room, then, right? Maybe I could take down the wall between our rooms – make myself a massive one."

He propelled himself on his elbows just enough so he could glare at her, his glasses comically crooked on his face. "Nice to see you find a silver-lining in my potential death."

"Well, you make people think of it so often that they need to make their own plans," Izzy replied. "Anyway, I heard you passed the survival test. Does that give you an official title or are you just going to be known as 'Tonks's paperwork bitch' from now on?"

He let out a groan. "The official title is 'cadet auror'. I'd prefer you stuck to it rather than your more colourful one," he informed her.

Izzy chuckled, but nodded. "So, how did it go, really? Everyone made the test sound pretty vicious," she said.

He made a non-committing sound. "I can see how people would think it is, but there are worse things in the world," he said. "Still, sleeping on top of a tree is not something I would recommend."

"On top of a tree? What did you sleep on a tree for?"

"I was being chased by a bear. I had to hide somewhere – it's not like I could wrestle it without a wand," he replied. "Did I mention they don't let you keep those on you?"

"A bear?" Izzy asked, disbelieving. "That's impossible. Bears are extinct in Britain. Don't tell me they imported a bear just to set it on you. Because that's just _too _good."

"Of course they didn't. It wasn't really a bear – Tonks told me it was an illusion they'd cast just to get our blood pumping," he said. "It worked."

"You'd have to be dead not to," she pointed out as she moved closer to the bed in order to take a seat on it. On she did, she nearly tripped on a bag that tipped sideways and spilled out a few dozen letters. "What's this?" she asked.

"What's what?" he replied, unable to see what she was referring to from his position.

"All the letters."

"Oh, that's fan mail," he said. "The auror office intercepts it for safety reasons. They hand it to me in bulk every once in a while. You can read it if you want. Be careful, though – they screen it for poison and stuff but they don't catch everything. Just last month, I had to rush Ron to St. Mungo's with pustules all over his face because of one of those. It wasn't pretty," Harry told her.

Izzy made a face at the visual and dug through the pile, avoiding the most psychotic-looking ones, branded with lipstick and sprayed with perfume. "Let's see…" she said, opening one. "A little girl in Cardiff says you're her hero. That's sweet – you should write this one back," she commented before moving on to the next. "There's some nutter in Manchester who thinks the war was a publicity stunt for the ministry and…" she paused, her eyes widening as she read insult after insult. "Bloody hell, just don't read this one. The bloke is a lunatic. I'll set it aside."

"Believe me, whatever it is, I've read worse," Harry assured her.

"Well, anyway," she said, still putting the letter away and moving on to the next. "Oh, this one is from WWN," she announced, referring to the main radio station in the Wizarding World.

"Put it away, then. They probably want an interview," Harry mumbled, uninterested.

"No, they don't," she said, having already opened and started reading. "They're asking if you're available to make an appearance on _Lover's Alley_ as yourself."

"What the bloody hell is _Lover's Alley_?" he asked, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

"You know what it is," she said, rolling her eyes. "It's that radio soap in WWN that's been on the air since the fifties. They want you for a ten-broadcast arc… and apparently they say it might involve a certain degree of nudity," she read.

Harry sat up straight. "Nudity? How can a wireless broadcast with no image whatsoever involve nudity?"

"I dunno. Pretend nudity, I guess. But you know how you can know for sure? Write them back saying 'yes'," she dared him.

"Not if it was the last job on Earth," he said immediately.

"Come on! I'll do your chores for the rest of your life. Seriously, even after you move out or marry Ginny, I will go to your home and do them for you – that's how much I want you to do this," she told him.

"Yeah, because you'd have a lifetime's worth of mocking material to use against me. Anyway, isn't that the wireless soap Sirius religious listens to because 'it's so bad it's actually good'?" Harry asked.

"Yes. Just imagine how proud it would make him," she argued.

"I'd rather drink a cauldron full of acidic potion," he assured her.

"Killjoy," she accused him with a huff, reaching for yet another letter. "Oh, this one is good too. Apparently, a woman in the eastern midlands is convinced you're the father of her unborn child."

"_Should I worry?_" they heard a familiar, unannounced voiced saying from the doorway.

They turned to it, only to see an unimpressed-looking Ginny standing there. Despite the look on her face, Harry grinned, glad to see her.

"I thought you weren't coming until after dinner," Izzy said.

"Change of plans," her friend declared before approaching her boyfriend and giving him a pointed look as she stood opposite him. "Well? Should I?"

"Definitely," he told her. "And this is probably not the only love child I have lying around. I just can't help myself."

Ginny slapped his shoulder, recognizing the mocking tone in his voice. "Idiot. I wonder why I missed you at all," she said, reaching over to place a kiss on his cheek as she sat by his side on the bed.

"So, what happened? I thought you wanted to be with your Mum tonight," Izzy asked.

The redhead sighed. "I did. But then Dad told me that Ron told him that George told him he's not coming home for Christmas this year," she declared.

"What? Why not?" Harry asked immediately as Izzy just stared, positively shocked. Christmas was sacred for the Weasleys – nothing short of being overseas, ill or in hiding ever stopped them from celebrating it together.

"Because he's a git, that's why," Ginny bitterly declared. "Anyway, Dad has to tell Mum tonight because she'd never forgive us if she found out another way and it's not hard to guess that she's going to take it badly. He told me to come here so I won't have to see just _how _badly."

For about thirty seconds, there was only silence. Then, Harry spoke. "Blimey. George is really taking it hard."

"He's taking it stupidly," Ginny corrected him. "He seems to forget that he wasn't the only one who lost a brother when Fred died. And that's on him, not anyone else," she added, looking pointedly at Izzy, predicting that a wave of guilt was just about to wash over her friend.

Before Izzy could respond, Mia suddenly walked into the room, a pile of towels on her arms. Both her hair and clothes seemed to be half-soaked, showing proof of her difficult task in bathing Alex and Mary. "Izzy, could you..." She stopped herself upon spotting the redhead. "Ginny, I didn't know you were here."

"Kreacher let me in," she replied. "Sorry I just dropped in on you. Sirius did say the invitation would stay open…"

"Sure it would. Ginny, you know you're always welcome here," Mia assured her. "I was actually just coming here to ask Izzy if she could go downstairs and set the table while Kreacher finishes dinner. You wouldn't mind going along, would you?"

"Of course not," she said.

"Good. As for you, Harry," she added, looking at her godson. "Get yourself in the shower now."

"Why? I've already showered before I came here," he replied in annoyance.

"I'm sure you did but you look dead on your feet. Go soak under hot water for a few minutes – you seem like you need it," she told him. "Well, I'm off now. Time to get the little ones out of the tub."

"Is there even any water left in it?" Harry asked, looking at his godmother's soaked state as he got up from the bed with some difficulty.

Mia sighed. "You should see your godfather," she told him before walking out.

The moment her mother was gone, Izzy got up as well. "Well, I'm heading downstairs. Please feel free to use my absence to get all those months of snogging deprivation out of your systems," she urged the couple before walking towards the door and leaving the room.

She made her way down the stairs on her own, only stopping in the kitchen, where she found Kreacher perched at the stove, cooking what seemed to be a combination of hers and Harry's favourite dishes – the main course for her, dessert for Harry.

She greeted the house-elf, who seemed glad to see her, already past resenting her for having given him the slip the day of the battle.

She was just about to fetch the towel when Ginny unceremoniously entered the room and gave her a hand at spreading it over the table.

"So, I was thinking... we should use tomorrow to go to Diagon Alley," the redhead declared.

"What? So you can kick George's arse for not coming home for Christmas?" Izzy guessed.

Ginny sighed. "As much as it would please me to do that, Mum would never let me hear the end of it. I think I'll just stay out of the shop altogether – I don't trust myself to be able to keep my fists to myself if I lay eyes on him. You, on the other hand..."

"Ginny, no," Izzy said as she went to fetch the plates.

"Ginny yes," the redhead corrected her. "I told you it's time the two of you set things straight."

"He doesn't sound like he's in the right mindset to straighten anything out," she pointed out, making her way back to the table and handing Ginny half the plates so they could set them on the table.

"Well, I'm hoping it'll be different with you," Ginny told her. "You two used to have a thing of your own – judging by the amount of time you two spent writing back and forth to each other, I'd guess you told each other stuff you just wouldn't tell anyone else. I know he's not answering your owls, but maybe if you're standing right in front of him he won't be able to be such an idiot. Hopefully, if you'll be able to talk him into get his head out of his arse."

"So, in short, you want me to fix him for you," Izzy summed up.

Ginny shrugged. "If that's how you want to see it... Can you honestly tell me I'm asking you to do something you don't want to?" she asked.

The brunette sighed. "I need to go fetch the glasses," she declared, walking away from the table, towards the cupboard near the stove.

She opened the cupboard and reached for the glasses inside. When she was putting them down on the counter, she noticed the odd way Kreacher was eyeing her. It didn't take long for her to guess that he'd probably heard her conversation with Ginny. She huffed. "Don't you give me that look, Kreacher," she told the house-elf, narrowing her eyes at him.

"What look does Young Mistress mean?" Kreacher questioned.

"You know what look. The same look my dad gives me when my name and boys appear in the same sentence," she specified, causing the look to appear again on Kreacher's face. "There! There it is. Busted. Isn't one boy-hating father enough? Do I really need to people in my life just waiting to hate the next bloke I like?"

"Young mistress don't deserve a broken heart," the house-elf told her.

He might as well have pulled a rug from under her feet. It touched her – it really, really did to hear him say that. "Kreacher…" she started. "I don't have a broken heart. Not really."

"Young mistress sad all summer. And not because of punishment," he replied.

"Yes, but that… that's not really his fault." Mostly, it was. But it was her fault that it was his fault, so those two facts seemed to annul each other.

Kreacher didn't seem to buy it either. "If need be, Young Mistress only need to tell Kreacher – he'll teach culprit a lesson on treating Young Mistress the way she deserves."

Izzy stared at him for what had to be minutes. "Did you just offer to beat up a boy for me?" In all seriousness, Kreacher nodded. "That is… the nicest thing anyone has offered to do for me in a long time," she told him, even more touched than she'd been before. At that moment, she wanted that house-elf to stay around forever. Had she had the formula to elixir of immortality herself, she'd have brewed it right then and there despite her hatred for potions so that Kreacher would live for all eternity and never leave her side for as long as she lived. Still, she just couldn't let him go and beat up poor George, as much of an arse as he might be. "But don't do that. Ever. Seriously – if I ever order you to do something like that, just ignore me on grounds of temporary insanity."

Kreacher seemed a little disappointed at that, likely because he wouldn't be able to defend his Young mistress's honour anymore.

Izzy cleared her throat. "Okay, I'd better get these glasses to the table," she said before walking back to the table, where Ginny was just finishing folding napkins.

"What was that?" her friend asked asked.

"Nothing," she said at first, quickly rethinking and deciding it was a story worth telling. "Kreacher just misguidedly offered to beat up your brother for me."

"Did he?" she asked, receiving a nod in return. She smiled. "I knew there was a reason why I liked him."

**A/N: And so here is the first chapter. No contact between George and Izzy yet, but they should end up in the same room next chapter. Feedback is welcome! Review!**


	2. Indifference

**A/N: And so here is chapter 2! Thank you for all your wonderful reviews and for your patience. It's another big one (surprise, surprise...). I hope you like it.**

All of Ginny's coaxing seemed to have results. On the morning of the day after she'd arrived home for her Christmas break, Izzy made her way down to the kitchen fully dressed, intending to grab some breakfast before making her way to Diagon Alley.

It wasn't particularly early – around ten in the morning, she thought, reminding herself she was supposed to meet Ginny at half past ten – yet everyone seemed to still be in their bedrooms. Well, everyone over the age of four as she'd found her younger siblings' rooms empty, which seemed to be explained by the giggling she'd heard coming out of her parent's bedroom, testimony of some tickling battle most likely between Alex and her dad.

Even before entering the kitchen, the smell of Kreacher's baking brought a little smile to her face, allowing her to forget for a little while how much she dreaded that conversation she was supposed to have with George later.

"What am I smelling?" she asked the house-elf, who seemed to be finishing scrambling some eggs.

"Cake," the house-elf replied. "Kreacher baking it for tonight."

By 'tonight', he actually meant Izzy's belated birthday get-together that was going to take place later that way. It had been her father's idea and, even though Izzy wasn't in particularly party-directed mood, she hadn't had it in her to fight him on that, especially considering that she'd rather not tell him the real reasons for her 'funk'. Her mother had, however, assured her it was going to be a small thing, with only a few close friends and family.

Of course, their list of close friends wasn't particularly small: aside from the permanent Grimmauld Place residents, her grandparents and, of course, the Weasleys, one could also count the Lupins, Hermione, Luna and Neville and, finally, Elizabeth and her lot on the list of invitations. Yet, the fact that Elizabeth wouldn't make it since she, Kingsley and her family had gone away for Christmas, Neville was in Sweden collecting rare herbs for professor Sprout and that, from the Weasleys, George was avoiding any sort of family gatherings like the plague and neither Bill (who was spending the week in France with his wife's family) nor Charlie would be in the country until the 23rd brought the number down to around a dozen and a half people, which she found just marginally acceptable…

"This early?" she asked, grabbing herself a mug to pour some of the tea she saw fuming on the stove.

"It need to cool so frosting won't melt when Kreacher decorate it," he explained.

"You don't need to put much effort into it, you know?" Izzy told him. "It's not actually my birthday today."

The house-elf gave her a look like she'd just said the ugliest piece of profanity he'd ever heard. "Young Mistress only turn of age once! Kreacher have to make sure that, even if it happen a week ago, special occasion be celebrated right!"

He seemed very concerned about that fact, so instead of countering him, Izzy just mumbled a low 'alright' before downing a large sip of the tea she'd just served herself, nearly choking when she realized it was so hot it must've boiled her tongue medium-rare. As she felt it burn all the way down to her stomach, Kreacher handed her a tall glass of water that actually had ice cubes in it, which she was thankful for as it seemed to put out the burning sensation a little.

"Young Mistress should sit. Kreacher will bring breakfast in a moment," he told her.

"Thanks," she mumbled, taking another sip of the pleasantly cold water.

It wasn't a minute later that the breakfast materialized in front of her, as if out of thin air. She ate it silently as she read the front-page article of a discarded edition of Witches' Weekly, naming Harry the most eligible 'bachelor' of 1998, somehow not mentioning Ginny's existence a single time in it, as if nobody knew about her… Of course, that wasn't really what disturbed her the most about that article, rather than the adjectives used to describe her brother's physique – they sounded more like they belonged to a description of food than of a human being.

Once she finished breakfast, she put the magazine in the rubbish bin, where it belonged, and bid Kreacher goodbye as she headed to the fireplace, promptly flooing to the Leaky Cauldron.

As usual, she landed covered in dust, coughing as she inhaled more of it than it was probably healthy. She was still dusting herself when she stepped away from the fireplace, mindful someone might suddenly materialize there and crash right into her, and made her way further into the pub.

"You might want to look up some ash-repelling spells," Ginny unceremoniously commented the moment she saw her. She got up from one of the pub's tables and made her way to Izzy. "Not to imply I don't have faith in you, but without apparition as an option, you'll have to rely on fireplaces a lot."

Izzy huffed. "Maybe I'll just stick to Muggle transportation instead," she pointed out. "And good morning to you too."

Ginny made a dismissive waving gesture with her hand. "Yeah, yeah… Anyway, there's something I wanted to talk to you about," she told her, her voice taking a more serious turn. "It's about what I said yesterday on you talking to George. I was thinking last night after I went home and I realized I wasn't very fair to you: I have no right to ask you to go and talk to him. If you don't feel like you're not ready to do it or that he's not ready to hear it, don't do it. Just don't. You don't even have to say anything. We can just go on with that Christmas shopping and, when we're done, go home like nothing happened. I swear I won't blame me you for it. I can deal with George myself when I'm sure I won't punch his face in in the process."

"I want to do it," Izzy declared.

"Iz, you don't…"

"_Really_. I do," she insisted. "I've been writing to him every Saturday since September, the only exception being the week when I was in St Mungo's. Of course I want him to feel better and of course I want to be the one helping him with that. And, yes, I do feel like he's not ready to talk or to let people help… but I have to try. I need to know that he knows I'm trying."

"He's bound to know," Ginny commented. "With all those letters, he bloody well better know. He may be an idiot but he's not stupid."

"Letters are not really the same," Izzy pointed out. "Look I'm doing it. I'm talking to him today. Not because you asked me to, not because I feel guilty. Because I want to. Consider yourself not responsible for any… annoyance that comes out of it."

"Well, now you're just being a bloody saint," Ginny mumbled. "Anyway, if that's what you really want, then so be it. Still, as your friend who doesn't want to risk letting you have your day ruined before it's even noon and who could use your help finding a handful of Christmas presents, I'm going to insist you leave that conversation for after lunch and get to the gift-hunting first."

Izzy raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that risking letting him get a wind about us being near and make a run for it like he did last summer?" Izzy asked.

"Are you kidding? This one of the busiest days of the year! He may be the boss but he's not stupid enough to leave the shop understaffed in a day like this," Ginny told her. "But if it makes you feel better, we can stick to Muggle London for now. You can help me find my dad something very Muggle for him to obsess over for the next few months."

"Oh, it's your turn to get your Dad's gift this year?" It was an old arrangement the Weasley siblings had come up with long ago – whenever Christmas or one of their parents' birthdays came around, they'd take turns at coming up with a gift, each of them pitching in the same amount of money for it. That way, each of them always had a chance to give their parents something decent without worrying over a minuscule budget.

"No – it was George's, actually, but since the git is in an anti-social mood lately, we decided to skip his turn, so I got Dad and Percy got Mum," the redhead said. "Anyway, any ideas on what to get Dad? You're the one who seems to know everything about Muggles."

"I don't know _everything_ about Muggles," Izzy replied. "I just happened to grow up with a very Muggle-friendly grandmother who got me addicted to watching the telly." Ginny gave her a look, making her sigh. "Look, knowing your Dad, you could give him an egg-timer and he'd be happy with it. Let's just go out and look – I'm sure we'll find something fun for him."

They did. After leaving the pub and spending a couple of hours walking the packed London streets, browsing around the colourfully-decorated shops, they settled on getting Mr Weasley some sort of murder-mystery board-game that seemed to be just the kind of thing that would get his childlike wonder of all-things Muggle running high while at the same time engaging the whole family in it.

Later, after they ended up finding themselves a few more interesting gifts of a Muggle nature, they stopped at a chip shop for lunch and, since the weather seemed decent enough at the moment, went to eat it at a nearby tree-covered public square.

It was nearly two in the afternoon when they made it to Diagon Alley, which seemed nearly impossible to safely walk with so many people crammed in to the single street – it was hard to compare the current state of the place with the complete and utter desertedness it had been suffering from one year before, when being outdoors could carry life-threatening consequences. But while people around seemed to have recovered the Christmas shopping cheer they'd been mostly deprived of the previous year and acted accordingly, Izzy's presence in Diagon Alley reminded her of the main purpose for her visit: talking to George. She couldn't put it off any longer – not without risking having George running off on her or potentially ending up chickening out.

Once she informed Ginny of that, her friend referred her back to their earlier conversation, reminding her again she was under no obligation to talk to George – except she was, Izzy thought. If not to George, then to herself. Ginny didn't go any further than that – as Izzy showed herself relentless, the redhead declared she was heading to the Quidditch supplies shop, where she'd be waiting for word from her. And, so, left on her own in the packed street, Isabelle Black made her way to the joke shop, where the much expected – and much dreaded – conversation awaited her.

The shop was chaos, as it usually was around the holidays, April's Fools day and just before school was to start and students wanted to stock up in joke products for the term. It was a small miracle people didn't repeatedly knock things over as everyone kept bumping into everyone and everything – in fact, it might just be magic rather than miracle…

When one wasn't particularly tall, as was Izzy's case, it was hard to discern anyone in that crowd unless one was literally about to bump into them. As such, she had to wrestle her way through it for a considerable amount of time before she even spotted a familiar face.

"Oi! Ron!" she called, approaching the tall redhead, who seemed to have just finished talking to a client. "Merlin, it feels like sardines in a can in here."

"Yeah, it gets worse in the afternoons," he agreed, looking over her as if he was expecting someone else. "Where's Ginny? I thought she was spending the day with you."

"She thought it was best to stay away," Izzy told him. "What with the Christmas thing… it wouldn't do any good to upset your Mum even further by hexing George or something."

"Yeah…" he mumbled. "I don't know what he's thinking. He's acting like we're bloody contagious or something."

Izzy nodded. "Listen, is he around, by any chance? I was hoping to have a word with him."

"What? Ginny sent you to do her dirty work?" Ron asked, looking suspicious.

"No… I mean, yes. Well, not yes _yes._" She paused, sighing. "Look, it's just complicated. So, is he or isn't he?"

"He usually hides in the backstage when the place is really crowded," Ron informed her. "He's probably down in the storeroom doing invent… oh, never mind. There he is," he said, pointing at somewhere over the crowd. "Oh, good, he brought more Screaming Yo-yos. We were running out of those."

Either Ron was seeing him two yards away or on the opposite end of the room, Izzy couldn't tell because all she could see was people and more people from where she stood.

"Where is he?" she asked.

"Right over there," he said, nodding at somewhere far out of her sight.

"Well, forgive me, it seems I left my periscope at home!" she said sarcastically, causing him to look down at her in confusion.

"Your peri-what?" he asked.

She sighed. "Forget it… just tell me which way to go."

"Right. Just go around the shelves – he's headed to the other side," Ron instructed her. "Hey, is that peri-something the thing Muggles use to listen to people's hearts?"

"Ask your girlfriend," she told him as she walked away.

It was another struggle following the path indicated by Ron (didn't anyone know 'excuse me' was a polite way to say 'get out of the damn way'?!), yet once she reached the other side of the shelves, she was glad to note that the youngest Weasley brother hadn't fooled her. There George stood, stocking a shelf with products from a cardboard box, oblivious to her presence just a few feet behind him.

She used that fact as an opportunity to take a moment to breathe and tell herself that there was absolutely nothing to the annoying feeling in her gut that things were going to go very badly. Once she was settled enough (not really enough, but as close as she could see herself getting), Izzy took a step further and then another, until she was standing right by him.

"George," she said. It seemed it was only then that he took notice of her presence.

She could feel him tense even without touching him. He gave her a single quick glance before his eyes focused back on his task of filling the shelf. "What?" he asked.

His unceremonious acknowledgement threw her off balance a little, to the point that, for a few seconds, she had no idea of what to reply. "I…" She paused. _I'm sorry. I hope you don't hate me. I should have told you I loved you when I had a chance._ Those were the things she wanted to say. She was, however, smart enough to know nothing good would come of her saying them. Not when he looked like he barely cared she was there. "I see business is booming," she commented.

"Everything booms this time of the year," he dryly commented.

She nodded. "Yeah… I guess the Christmas shopping has its perks." A moment of silence followed her words. It must've lasted at least ten seconds, as far as she could tell. When she spoke, her voice came out a mere whisper. "I was hoping we could get a moment to talk."

"Can't," he said immediately, his eyes not even flickering from what he was going. "Like you said, business is booming. I can't take a break now."

"Later, then," she suggested.

"There's still plenty to do after the shop closes," he informed her.

She pursed her lips, growingly frustrated. He didn't want to talk to her. Period. He'd made that abundantly clear by not answering her letters… She actually felt stupid for having thought otherwise. For having listened to Ginny in her argument that she might be different than all others. If anything, she might be worse.

"I've been writing to you," she declared before she could stop herself. She wasn't sure why she's said it or to what purpose. It just came out.

"I know," he sombrely replied.

She bit her lip. "So you've been getting the letters," she prompted.

"Yes."

"Good." At least they weren't ending up somewhere else. He just didn't answer them by choice – that much was set in stone in her mind at that point. "Listen, I get that you don't want to talk, but…"

"Look, I've got a shop to run," he declared. It felt wrong. Saying that without looking at her. But he just couldn't let himself do it. He wasn't sure why. He just knew he couldn't. "It's the busiest time of the year and I've got plenty to do. I don't have time to listen to more of the same, Izzy." And, with that, he grabbed the box and walked away.

She stood there, immobile and boiling in the must utter disbelief, watching him walk away from her the same way he had the day of the battle after she'd crushed him to bits.

In normal circumstances, she'd might have followed him and yelled, but his words themselves – one word in specific – seemed like a big block of concrete keeping her sunken at the bottom of the sea, unable to move one way or the other. She probably stood there like some pathetic statue for quite some time, because, next thing she knew, someone was checking on her, apparently not just for her to get out of the way.

"Izzy, are you alright?" she heard the familiar voice asking after feeling the touch of a hand on her shoulder.

She turned around to find Remus Lupin standing in behind her. He seemed to have a look of concern on his face as he carried a big package that look like it had come from the post office. "Sure," she quickly lied. "I was just going through my Christmas list in my head."

"The naughty list, I imagine," Remus stated, judging by the expression she'd had on her face.

"Something like that. But, anyway, you look well. Dad said you're not limping from the fall anymore. That's good," she said, changing the subject.

"Yes, the healers say I'm ready for another. I told them I'd rather not test their theory," the werewolf joked.

"I'm sure Tonks will be thankful," she pointed. "You guys are coming by tonight, right?"

"Of course. And that reminds me: Happy belated Birthday," he wished her.

"Thanks. I should probably go, though. You look like you have plenty to do around here and Ginny's waiting for me – we're doing some Christmas shopping," she excused herself.

"Don't be surprised if you find Dora out there somewhere doing the same – she took the day off for some 'Christmas duty', or so she calls it. But I won't keep you any longer. I'll see you later, then," he said before making his way to the counter to rescue the cashier, Lee Jordan's girlfriend Verity, from a tidal wave of clients washing over her.

The way out of the shop wasn't as much of a struggle as the way in (there was probably a message from the universe in there somewhere…), as she managed to join a group that was on their way out, doing all the bumping for her.

Outside, she made her way to the Quidditch supplies shop, and allowed herself to mourn the distance that seemed to have etched itself between her and George. She'd expected anger – anger like the one he'd shown her after she'd said all those horrible things to him during the battle. Even as she hoped for the polar opposite of it, the possibility of bitterness had also crossed her mind. She hadn't, however, thought he'd just go and keep her at arm's length like her presence was a mere inconvenience – that wasn't him. Not even close.

But still, the distance, the… indifference hadn't been what had shocked her the most. It was his use of her name… or lack of thereof. She wasn't sure when it had become a thing – he'd called her Izzy in the past, like everyone else, but at some point it had just changed. At some point, she'd become Isabelle to him and, at some other point, that had started to matter for her. It had become less of a name and more of a code – a thing of their own. So, hearing him just minutes before calling her 'Izzy' like every bloody person she knew did, had felt like a punch to the gut. Silly as it might be, it made her feel like she'd just been stripped of part of her own self, as if the two of them had never been anything at all… It probably would have hurt less if he'd just yelled at her or caller her something not nice at all.

The stinging feeling of loss remained even as she started trying to settle herself upon spotting the Quidditch shop – she didn't want to send Ginny on a rage or anything… So, as she made her way to the entrance, she tried to focus on the things around her rather than the ones in her head, such as how even more shops had opened and reopened since she'd last been there in September and how very few of them seemed anything less than packed. Some actually had lines reaching the outside and Quality Quidditch Supplies appeared to be one of those though, as she got closer, she noted the line was actually just for people waiting to get themselves a brand new Firebolt X (that Christmas's must-have item) from a shipment due to arrive in about three hours and that was rumoured to contain the last available broomsticks of that model before they sold out for Christmas. Still, in order to get herself inside the shop, she practically had to swear an unbreakable oath to a bunch of people waiting in line that no, she wasn't trying to cut in line because no, she wasn't buying a broomstick since no, she didn't play Quidditch, professionally or otherwise.

"Ginny?" she called over the many voices echoing in the shop once inside. "Are you here?"

She waited a couple of seconds for her to respond but, instead of a spoken respond, she found her friend appearing from behind a display with a look of surprise on her face and an eight-month-old metamorphagus in her arms that Izzy had no idea where had come from. "What? You're back already?" the redhead asked as Teddy squirmed around in her arms. "Why do I have a feeling that's not a good sign?"

"A good sign about what?" she heard another very familiar voice asking from behind Ginny. Hadn't she recognized the voice immediately, she might have thought Ginny would be with Tonks, given Teddy's presence – she'd be wrong. It was Harry… or at least Izzy thought it might be him under the ridiculous attempt at a disguise – some sort of floppy snow hat and sunglasses – he seemed to be wearing.

"What the bloody hell are you wearing?" she asked him, disbelieving at how ridiculous he looked at that moment.

"Hey, watch the language around the baby," he warned. "Tonks will kill me if I give him back blabbing expletives."

"Yeah, I don't think he's quite at that phase yet," Ginny said, rocking her godson in an attempt to get him settled, though he appeared quite unsatisfied about being in her arms – rather odd, since Harry and Ginny were well known for their habit of spoiling the boy rotten.

"Right," Izzy mumbled. "So, back to…" she gestured to the general area containing Harry, unsuccessfully trying to find a word to describe him "… _that_. Is that supposed to be a disguise? Because let me tell you: it's not doing a very good job keeping attention away from you. You look like a…" Once again, she couldn't find the right word to put it.

"Nutter?" Ginny offered. "Some pervert trying to fondle you when you're not looking?"

"Hey!" Harry protested.

"If you want to put it mildly," Izzy agreed.

"Again, hey!" he repeated. "At least the 'nutter' or the 'pervert' aren't being swarmed by a sea of mad people asking for autographs, thank you very much."

"I thought you said that didn't happen anymore," Izzy pointed out, vaguely recalling him mentioning the big achievement of being able to come to Diagon Alley without being ambushed by fans in a letter about a month back.

"I did, but that's when the most hysterical ones are locked up at Hogwarts," he said, referring to teenage witches in general.

"Thanks a lot," Ginny said dryly as Teddy kept on shifting in her arms.

Harry rolled his eyes. "You know I don't mean you. I mean loose-canons like… I dunno, Romilda Vane. Kingsley warned me to keep an eye out for them during school breaks before he left for holiday. Apparently they keep mailing me weird stuff: letters dipped in love potions, locks of their hair, knickers…" The redhead snorted at that. "It's not funny. You heard what kind of stuff they write in their letters yesterday." He sighed. "Anyway, as long as looking like a nutter keeps them away, I'll go along with it."

"Well, at least take the sunglasses off when you're indoors," Izzy told him. "It's just plain weird that you're walking around with them here. Really, if I owned the place, I'd think you were about to rob me."

Harry rolled his eyes but, recognizing she had a point, he used his own wand to remove the transfiguring charm he'd placed on his usual glasses before, reverting them to their usual shape and colour. He was careful to keep his face down so the people standing in line and those shopping around wouldn't catch a glimpse and recognize him.

"Better?"

"Slightly less creepy," she offered.

"Shut up," Harry grumpily mumbled.

Perhaps out of spite, most likely out of coincidence, Teddy chose the exact moment after his godfather spoke to let out a loud, indignant whimper.

"Is he okay?" Izzy asked, watching as Ginny rocked the boy harder and placed a kiss on the top of his head, now covered with hair the colour of the purest gold.

"He's a little fussy. Tonks mentioned he hasn't been sleeping well because he's teething," Harry said.

"I didn't know you were looking after him today," she commented.

"I wasn't," he said. "I ran into Tonks outside about fifteen minutes ago. She said she spotted some strange character selling suspicious potiond at the entrance of Knockturn Alley and asked me to look after Teddy while she checked it out."

"Is it safe for her to do that alone?" Izzy asked, sceptical.

Harry chuckled. "You clearly have never seen her arresting anyone. It's like her clumsiness becomes contagious – I heard Goyle Sr. ran straight into a wall when she was chasing him," he stated, just as Teddy let out another whimper, his hair taking a darker tone as he did so.

Ginny sighed. "Hey, do you think you can take him back to the Snitch tank while I have a word with Izzy?" she asked, shifting the baby in order to hand him over. "I think seeing them fly around was distracting him from the pain before."

Harry nodded and picked up his godson without a fuss – long gone were the days when simply laying eyes on the boy would cause him to seem as if he was staring at a fully-armed bomb, promptly walking back the way he and Ginny had come from earlier.

Once she was sure they were alone, the redhead turned to her friend with an inquisitive look on her face. "Well? Am I right to assume it didn't go well?" she asked. "Was he an arse to you too? Do I need to go there and…?"

"No, you don't," Izzy told her before she could finish. "Just leave him be. It didn't go well but it didn't go horribly either." It had to her… but Ginny didn't need to know that part. "I think the most accurate description would be that it didn't go _at all_. Period."

Ginny frowned. "What? How? Wasn't he there? Did you change your mind?"

"No, I didn't change my mind and yes, he was there. We…" she paused, thinking of how to put it "…exchanged words but it was only for about a minute, so I wouldn't really call it a 'conversation'. It was more along the lines of me trying to get him to talk and him making it blatantly obvious he wasn't interested." She sighed. "Look, can you please just… ask me about this later? I don't think I have it in me to go into detail right now. In fact, I think I'm just going to head home."

"What? Already? Merlin, was it _that_ bad?"

"I told you it wasn't…"

"I know what you _told _me," Ginny said, implying she didn't quite buy it. "But are you sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine," she told Ginny, who gave her a sceptical look. "I _am_. He didn't want to talk. We didn't talk." _And he called me Izzy, like he didn't know me at all_, she added in her mind. "I just feel like going home and getting myself some peace before tonight."

Her friend sighed. "Well, if you say so…" she mumbled. "But come on, come at least to tell Harry you're leaving."

Izzy nodded and followed her friend as she guided her to where she knew Harry and Teddy to be.

They weren't joking about the 'Snitch tank' before – that was the first thing Izzy noted. She didn't come to the shop often – usually not more than once a year –, so it was understandable she'd never really come face to face with the huge fish-tank-like glass box containing no water or fish but what had to be hundreds of golden Snitches flying inside.

Little Teddy seemed particularly fascinated by them, his little hands pushing on the glass as Harry held him in front of him, apparently trying to catch one. Judging by the tone of his hair, back to pure gold, any thought of a teething ache seemed completely gone, so excited he was.

"Looks like he's a Seeker on the making," Izzy commented as she approached.

"That's what I keep telling Ginny," Harry agreed. "She says it doesn't mean anything."

"It doesn't!" his girlfriend insisted. "He likes the Snitches because they're shiny. If I found him a golden Quaffle, I'm sure I'd like it just as much."

Harry chuckled. "To be fair, we'll be lucky if we get him to play Quidditch at all – the thought of Remus playing Quidditch makes Sirius laugh to tears and Tonks isn't particularly coordinated either. Genetics are not on his favour."

"No shame about that though. If that turns out to be the case, he just happen to be one of mine," Izzy commented, tickling the baby before turning to Harry. "Anyway, I was just telling Ginny I'm heading home."

"Already? I just got here," Harry complained.

"All the more reason for me to go, then," she pointed out.

"Hey!"

"Not because I shudder at the thought of being near you," she said, rolling her eyes. "Because I'd rather not play third wheel to you and Ginny."

"Pretty sure we already have one of those," the redhead pointed out, nodding at her godson in a last-minute attempt to get Izzy to stay. "Not that we mind, really. Come on – we can go to Florean Fortscue's and dare the cold with some winter ice cream. Ron says the new owners are dabbling into some pretty weird new flavours over there. We could try a few, see which one is more disgusting: lard or sardine."

"Not today," she said. "Go spoil your godson before Tonks comes back and steals him away. I'm going home. Maybe Mum could use a hand getting things ready."

The couple sighed, defeated. "Alright," Harry said. "Send a Patronus if you're too short-handed over there."

Izzy nodded and, ruffling the baby's golden hair one last time, made her way out of the shop.

The Leaky Cauldron was a mess when she got there and, upon spotting the huge line of families waiting to take the floo connection home, Izzy decided to make her way to 12 Grimmauld Place in less magical ways – she might as well get used to that, given her lack of ability to apparate…

She walked to the nearest tube station and, after carefully consulting the network's diagram to make sure she was going on the right direction (unlike had been the case last time she'd used the tube), hopped onto the Northern line train headed to Edgware. Strangely enough, the tube itself had soothing effect on her even though Muggles often thought it hellish, noisy and cluttered. Maybe it was the fact that rush hour was still hours away or that the loud sounds of the train served to distract her from the voice in her head – George's voice – saying her name (or rather nickname) over and over and over again, as if giving her the verdict that they were nothing anymore.

She exited the train at the station that was closest to home and walked the rest of the way there, though the mostly residential streets. She was just around the corner from her house when she heard her name being called from the park on the other side of the street.

She turned towards the source of the voice and was surprised to see her grandmother standing inside a fenced playground located in the park. "Lulu?" Izzy mumbled to herself as she started to cross the road in order to approach the woman. "What are you doing here?" she asked once she was close enough to not to need to shout so the woman would hear her.

The older woman raised her eyebrows. "Oh, that's nice. You see me for the first time in nearly four months and no 'hello' to your own grandmother?"

"I thought I wasn't allowed to refer you as a 'grandmother'," Izzy pointed out as she crossed the garden's gate and walked into it. "Something about you being too young and being referred as a 'grandmother' causing you to shrivel up and die…"

"That's right. No 'gran' for you," Lulu confirmed.

"Well, 'no gran', hello," Izzy greeted the woman as she finally reached her and was, at last, able to see that Lulu was standing by a spring rider occupied by a giggly Mary, who started blabbing the word 'Ich' repeatedly as soon as she saw her. "And yet it seems you're on grandmother duty."

"Double grandmother duty," the older woman corrected her, nodding at the slide on which Alex and his friend Darcy Finnigan seemed to be taking turns. "Triple if you count Darcy too. Which brings me to the point when I tell you that, as of this moment, you're in big sister duty too," she pointed out. "A single person can only do so much watching three kids…"

Izzy raised her eyebrows, though she didn't protest her new assignment. "Where's Gabe, then?" she asked before reaching down to place a kiss on top of her baby sister's head, who happily squealed and bounced on her seat.

"Home. He banished me from there," Lulu casually said.

"Why? Are you having a fight?"

"No. He's probably trying to hide my Christmas Present," she stated. "It won't work, though. If I managed to find last year's buried in a flower pot, I'm pretty sure I can find this one's in a blink of an eye. I've already noticed him eyeing the telly a lot and everything – he'll probably try and take it apart so he can hide whatever it is inside. He couldn't beat me if he tried."

Izzy sighed. "You're a weird couple, you two," she commented.

Lulu smiled. "Yes, we are," she agreed with no hesitation. "So, how's Hogwarts? More specifically, how is the male population over there? Anything noteworthy?"

She shrugged, uninterested. "Not really, no," she said.

The older woman raised her eyebrows. "What? Nothing? Not a single interesting little soul for you to swoon over? What is wrong with you, girl? Do you really have to be so picky?"

"Well, it's not like I'm looking or anything in the first place."

Lulu gave her a simply appalled look. "Why not? You're young, you're pretty, you're funny… No better time for you to be on the prowl than now."

"Dad wouldn't agree," she pointed out.

Her grandmother rolled her eyes. "Your father needs to mind his own business. You're a smart girl and of age – boys aren't the enemy. Just because that father of yours likes to act like a bloody caveman over them, doesn't mean you should pay him any mind on that, which I'm fairly sure you already know. So why on earth aren't you out there breaking hearts like a girl your age should?"

Izzy sighed. Because she already had a bloke in mind and it just happened that she'd already broken far more than said bloke's heart, so now he didn't even want her near him… "I just don't feel like it," she lied.

Lulu didn't appear to buy it. In fact, as Izzy tried to busy herself with helping Mary swing back and forth on the horse-shaped spring-rider, Lulu just stared at her with a look of concern – very unlike the woman who was urging her to go out there and break hearts just a moment before. "So, it's true, then? Merlin… You know you can't hold on to him forever, right?"

Izzy felt herself tense at that moment, though she made an effort not to give it away. Lulu couldn't know about George, could she? No, no way… "To who?"

"You know _who_, Izzy," Lulu told her. "I know it's hard – trust me, I really, really do – but it's over. You have to let go. He's dead."

Izzy turned to the woman sharply, a look of horror on her face. "What?!"

"Come on, Izzy. It's hard to let go – I understand. But you have to – it's not healthy if you don't," her grandmother patiently told her.

"He's not _dead_. He's… different but he's _not_ dead! Why would you say something like that?!" she nearly shouted.

Lulu looked at her like she was insane. "Izzy, you were at his funeral. You spent months losing it every time someone mentioned his name."

At that, something clicked in Izzy's head. "Oh my god," she mumbled. "Oh my god, you think I fancied _Fred_!"

The older woman seemed taken aback by her disbelieving tone. "Didn't you?"

"_No!_" she said. "Merlin, I can't believe you thought I was into _Fred_! He was a friend – that's all. He had a girlfriend he was completely nuts about!"

"Well, there's such a thing as unrequited love," Lulu replied, defensively. "So if you didn't have the hots for Fred, what was all that crying about? I get that you can grieve for a friend but, Merlin, that was just… out of proportion. No offence or anything."

Izzy looked away for a moment. "It wasn't grief…" she said without looking at Lulu "… it was guilt."

"Guilt? Over what?"

"It's complicated," Izzy mumbled with a sigh, hoping Lulu would get it that she didn't want to talk about it. She picked up Mary, who seemed to be getting bored, and carried the little girl over to a double swing a few yards away, taking a seat on it with her.

Lulu followed her there, standing with her arms crossed by the swing and watching as her eldest granddaughter softly balanced herself back and forth on it while the little one crawled onto her lap and started rubbing her eyes, indicating she might be due for a nap soon. "Well, I suppose I owe you an apology for making assumptions… but you've got to admit – it fit. I myself couldn't stand to hear Gabe's name for months after he… well, allegedly died."

Izzy didn't respond to that. In fact, the mention of her grandfather's ordeal brought another thought to her mind. "He lost his whole family during the first war, didn't he? Gabe, I mean," she asked, stopping the swing for a moment, which immediately bothered the drowsy Mary on her lap, who seemed to be in the process of being lulled to sleep by the motion right up until then.

Lulu nodded. "He did… well, not your Mum and I, but he didn't know that at the time," she said before giving the swing a push to resume Mary's lulling. "Why do you ask?"

The younger girl looked down for a moment. "I was wondering… did it change him?" she asked. "Losing them, I mean."

Her grandmother took a few moments before answering. "Of course it did. It always does, losing someone," she said. "It wounds you."

"Does it ever heal?" She'd never really lost someone very close to her. Not to death, at least. She had no idea how it really felt, aside from the initial shock that Harry's pretend death had caused her. It had been… the worst she'd ever felt in her life. But now, more than ever, she needed to understand what came after. She needed to understand so she'd understand George.

"It does. As long as you're alive, wounds almost always heal, either you want them to or not," Lulu explained. "The thing is that they leave scars: sometimes they're little ones you can hardly notice; other times they're big, ugly ones you just can't ignore. Those can be actually painful years on. Even though they healed, they didn't really heal right, you know?"

Izzy nodded and remained quiet, absently rocking the swing as she thought of how deeply Lulu's words applied to George.

"Can other people help? Healing the wounds, I mean?" she asked.

Lulu nodded. "I suppose they can," she said before taking a second to check on Alex and his friend – they seemed to have moved from playing on the slide to the seesaw. Then, she looked back at Izzy, who seemed more thoughtful than ever. "Is there someone you want to help?"

"Yes," Izzy replied.

"And does that person want to be helped?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Is it hurting you? Not being able to help?"

Right on the nail, Izzy thought, taking a few seconds to answer. "Yes."

Her granddaughter's responses made Lulu thoughtful for a few seconds. She sighed at some point and, just as the swing had ceased moving (a fact Mary was completely oblivious to by then), spoke. "Izzy, I can't tell you what to do. I wouldn't know what to tell you in the first place – there's no standard remedy for grief. People experience it differently," she declared without hesitation. "There's no way of doing it right or wrong. In fact, there's little way for you to control it. Sometimes you lean on others, other times you push them away, sometimes it hits you hard, others it makes you seem… unfeeling. One way or the other, grief can blind you. It can make you do or say things that won't go well with others, it can make you push people who care about you away and, when that happens… well, my father used to say that your freedom ends when someone else's freedom begins."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Izzy asked, confused.

"It means that you can do whatever the hell you want in life. But when what you do harms someone else in any way, then you're stepping out of the line and have to be responsible for it," Lulu explained. "Like I said, I can't tell you what to do to ease someone's grief but what I can tell you is how to be a good friend: friends tell friends when they're stepping out of that line. And it seems to me like that's the case with that person you're trying to help – they're hurting a friend who just wants to help."

"Lulu, I can't just…"

"Just because someone is grieving, it doesn't mean you should refrain from calling them on their crap," she interrupted her granddaughter before she could give any excuse. "They're still people – the fact that they're hurting won't change that. If it breaks them to hear about their own actions, well, maybe that's part of the healing process because Merlin knows that maybe sometimes the things they're doing and the people they're hurting are not even really registering in their heads – they're too lost in their own thing. Making them see it _is_ helping."

Izzy didn't respond immediately. It took her about ten seconds to say a word. "What if that person has a good reason not to want me to help? Not to even want to speak to me?" Izzy asked her. "What if it's possible they just… hate me?"

Lulu gave her a look. "Why would you think that?"

"He called me 'Izzy'," she said out loud for the first time, disappointment all over her tone.

"So what? It's your name," the older woman replied.

"Not to him, it isn't," Izzy told her.

Lulu raised her eyebrows but, after a few seconds of trying to figure it out, she decided just to go with it. "Ask him. If he hates you, I mean. I can't say it will be easy to hear it if you get a 'yes' but at least then you'd know. You can't just go wondering forever."

Izzy looked down, holding her sleeping baby sister closer to herself as if she was some sort of comfort blanket. Lulu's words sounded right enough – wondering was torture sometimes. But knowing… risking knowing that he did hate her – couldn't that be even worse? She didn't know if she had it in her to ask and find out… "Thanks," she said, nonetheless.

"You're welcome," Lulu responded. "Though, let me knew how it goes when you… handle it."

"You're not going to ask who I was referring to?"

Lulu shook her head. "I'm sure you'll tell me when you're ready," she replied. "Besides, the fact that it's a 'he' and that you seem to be so invested in helping him tells me most of what I need to know. I wouldn't want to put you off by asking too many questions…" she added with a wink, satisfied with the realization that her granddaughter might not be as antisocial as she's initially deemed.

The conversation seemed to end there and they didn't stay in the park much longer after that as the darkening grey sky threatened to drench them to the bone at any second.

Yet, Lulu's words, as well as her conversation – or lack of thereof – with George filled Izzy's mind for the rest of the day, even through her own birthday party and its respective set up.

She was thankful it was a small celebration where everyone knew each other – that way, she didn't need to contribute much into the conversation.

As such, she went through dinner and blew her candles without anyone but Ginny, who was already marginally aware of what had gone on with George, Lulu, obviously, and her mother, who'd asked her once if she was alright, commenting on her thoughtful state, noticing she wasn't quite there in spirit, so focused they were on the celebration itself.

After Alex and Mary had been put their respective beds, Teddy had also fallen asleep on Alex's old travel cot and Luna had flooed home, citing tiredness over some sort of Winter Solstice celebrations she and her father had shared the previous night as the reason to go, people started scattering around the house in smaller groups, chatting away about all sorts of different matters.

While Arthur continued his well-known love-affair with the television, relying on Lulu and Gabe to explain to him why people were given money on some television show for knowing which one of four names didn't belong to one of some Monegasque princess's ex-boyfriends, Sirius had dragged Remus down to the library, with Tonks in a tow, in order to show him a bunch of old school photographs McGonagall had recently given to him after coming upon them while going through some school files. Molly and Mia had vanished along with the dirty dishes not long after dinner, indicating they were most likely downstairs in the kitchen helping Kreacher clean up and, finally, the youngest members of the party, had gone upstairs and claimed Harry's room as their place to hang out.

Although she did try to pay attention at first, Izzy's mind started to drift again as the conversation changed subjects, from Hogwarts to the Auror Office, from Auror Office to the Ministry in general, from the Ministry to old acquaintances and from there to who knew where. Next thing she knew, someone was snapping their fingers in front of her as if to wake her from a trance.

"Oi! Did you hear me?" she heard Harry asking a second later. "Where were you just now?"

"I was thinking," she replied irritably, slapping his hand away. "What is it?"

"I was saying that we still haven't gotten your parents anything," he pointed out. "We should hurry up with it. It's Christmas Eve the day after tomorrow."

"I'll think of something," she said.

"Hey, since you don't seem so engaged in conversation, do you think you could go downstairs and get us some more of that cake?" Ron asked, his stomach clearly grumbling.

Hermione gave him an appalled look. "The nerve of you… get up and get them yourself, Ronald Weasley!" she scolded him.

Izzy got up. "That's okay. I'll do it. I'm getting a little thirsty, anyway. I think I'll get myself some pumpkin juice. Does anyone want anything?" she asked before heading to the door.

Everyone but Ron shook their heads. "Make it an extra thick slice for… ouch! Merlin, Hermione!" he shouted when Hermione pinched him. _Hard_.

"_You'll give yourself a heart attack before you're thirty if you keep eating that way_," Izzy vaguely heard the older girl telling her boyfriend as she left the room.

Izzy headed to the stairs just a little amused and made her way down them only to hear what had to be Arthur playing with the remote by rising and lowering the volume repeatedly once she passed the living room. Down on the ground floor, the sound of Tonks's laughter was nearly hysterical, likely fuelled by one of many hysterical stories her father had in his sleeve.

Once she reached the stairs leading down to the kitchen, though, the contrast in the mood was just shocking – instead of the laughter making itself heard on the ground floor, it was only weeping that sounded in the basement. It made Izzy stop on her tracks immediately, feeling like she was about to intrude into something very private. Still, although the feeling of intrusion wouldn't let her get any closer than the halfway down the stairs she'd already descended, her chronic curiosity wouldn't just let her walk away – not until she at least got an inkling of what was going on.

The answer came quickly, though the sound of Mia's soothing voice. "_Molly…_"

"_I… I'm sorry_," the older woman was saying between sobs. "_I pr-promised myself I wouldn't cry any…_" she stopped to let out a hiccup _"…more but I just can't help it. I can't believe he's… not coming home. I don't know what to do._"

Molly's voice was despaired and Izzy had no doubt she was referring to George when she mentioned 'he' was not coming home. George was refusing to come home for Christmas and that was breaking his mother's heart. She couldn't even begin to think how wrong that was.

"_Maybe he just needs time_," her mother was saying softly. "_People mourn in all sorts of ways. I myself threw a tantrum against Christmas just after Izzy was born. I couldn't stand going through it without Sirius or Lily and James. I got over it eventually_."

"_It just hurts too much_," Molly sobbed. "_It's like it wasn't just Fred. It feels… I know it's an… awful thing to say but… it feels as if I lost them both. It feels like both of them have been gone ever since that battle._"

Izzy wasn't sure why – especially since she knew (of course she knew!) that George had never been the same ever since his twin brother's death – but hearing those words from Molly's mouth shook Izzy to her very core. And, just like that, she knew what needed to be done.

It was George, for Merlin's sake. _George_. George who adored his family. George who was one of the kindest people she knew. George who'd been disgusted at how Percy had treated his mother after taking the ministry's side. And now, George who was making his mother cry as well. That couldn't be. That was just plain _wrong _and if she had any loyalty to the George from before, she owed it to him not to let this new, bitter George get away with what he was doing.

She was going to follow Lulu's advice and give him a piece of her mind about what he was doing to the people around him.

And that time she was going to make sure he heard it, either he wanted it or not.

**A/N2 - So, it wasn't the big confrontation yet - Izzy wasn't quite angry enough for it to blow up. George won't escape next chapter, though. I hope you liked it, nonetheless!**

**Feedback is welcome! Review!**


	3. Hostility

**A/N: And so the long-awaited confrontation arrives! Enjoy!**

**23 December 1998**

From the moment she woke up, Izzy Black knew she was going to yell that day. Loudly. She also knew that the person most likely to – oh, who was she kidding? Who was most _certainly _going to, more like – be on the wrong end of that yelling was one George Weasley. And she was bloody well sure that was she was going to make him hear it that time, even if the only way to achieve it turned out to be by petrifying his arse.

She'd slept for four hours at the most, spending the rest of the night talking herself in and out of her plans to give the boy in question a piece of her mind. It was an odd dialogue inside her head: sometimes she told herself she should be careful and go easy on him because she'd played a role in the making of his current, angry self; others she wouldn't allow herself to consider anything but harsh, merciless words to make him see what an arse he was being to everyone, to the point of making his own mother cry. At some point, she decided there was no use going on debating in her mind – she'd just have to go there and figure it out as she went along.

The sun was barely up when she left her room and made her way down the stairs, intending to go straight to the front door – she just couldn't wait any longer. Every moment of anticipation that passed was like torture. All that wondering only served to drive her insane and the sooner she confronted George, the sooner it would be over. And she really, _really_ needed it to be over, preferably due to a positive outcome.

Luck, however, wasn't quite on her side…

"_Izzy, honey, is that you?_" she heard her mother's voice asking from the living room when she reached the first floor.

She inwardly groaned. Bugger… her mother just had to pick that morning to get up early and catch her on her way out. Not that she was breaking any rule, really, but her apparent need to leave the house at eight in the morning was bound to bring up some questions. "Yes, it's me," she replied with a sigh, knowing it was useless to just try and escape.

"_Well, come in here, then,_" Mia urged her from inside the room.

Izzy sighed again but complied, making her way to the door and walking in. She found her mother standing by a high table she'd never seen before (probably something she'd transfigured), wrapping a medium sized box with Christmas-themed paper by hand. She always did it by hand – it was just one of those habits that Lulu's Muggle-friendliness had passed on to them, even if they required far much work than a wave of a wand. 'Half of the sentiment of a gift you give comes from the paper cuts you get while wrapping it,' Lulu had always said for whatever reason (likely just to be stubborn). Still they did it by hand anyway, if not for anything else because it was a nice ritual. A ritual her mother seemed to have gotten up early just for the sake of putting into practice.

"Are you going somewhere?" her mother asked, surprised by finding her already fully dressed when she looked up. Mia herself seemed to be wearing little more than a nightie under her dressing gown. "It's barely eight yet."

"I know. But I have to tie some loose ends from yesterday's trip to Diagon Alley. I'd rather get it done now," she said, not really lying but not quite divulging the truth either.

Mia gave her a look, not quite buying it. "Are you alright, sweetie?"

"You've already asked me that yesterday," she pointed out.

"And you didn't really answer, did you?" her mother stated. "If I recall it well, you made a quick exit to go and greet Luna who'd just arrived."

"I was just being polite," Izzy declared. "It was my birthday dinner – I ought to greet my guests."

Mia rolled her eyes, recognizing the excuse for what it was. "I'm sure that's what that was about. Can you pass me some ribbon?"

Izzy sighed, in a bit of a hurry. "Which colour?" she asked anyway.

Her mother inspected the red-wrapped package. "White? Or maybe gold? What do you think? This one is for Teddy," she stated.

"Gold," she replied, recalling the boy's clear preference the previous day as she handed the roll to her mother. "Do you need my help with something? Because I should really go…"

"Have you had anything to eat yet?" Mia asked, full of motherly concern.

"I'm not really hungry, Mum," she replied.

Mia gave her a look. "You know you're not walking out of this house without something in your stomach, right?"

Izzy bit on her lip. She loved her mother – she really did. But sometimes she couldn't help wishing she just wasn't such a _mum. _"I'll just take an apple with me or…"

"Kreacher!" her mother shouted before she could finish.

The house-elf appeared out of nowhere in front of her. "Mistress."

"Could you bring some breakfast up for Izzy? Nothing fancy – just a glass of milk and some toast," she requested.

"Mum!" Izzy protested.

Mia ignored her daughter. "Oh and are the little ones up yet?"

Kreacher shook his head. "No, Mistress, little master and mistress still sleeping."

"Alright, we'll check on them later, then," she said.

Kreacher nodded. "Kreacher bring breakfast up in a minute." And then, after shooting Izzy some sort of concerned look, he disappeared with a pop.

"You didn't need to do that," Izzy said with a sigh.

"Yes, I did. I'm your mum. It's my job to make sure my kids don't go out with an empty stomach, among other things."

"Even when they're of age and perfectly capable of taking care of themselves?"

"Especially when they _think _they're of age and perfectly capable of taking care of themselves," Mia said. "Now, sit down and wait for your food. It's just milk and toast – it will hardly kill you."

Izzy let out a long-suffering huff but still did as she was told, sitting down on the sofa only a few feet away from her mother.

Soon enough, maybe seconds later, the sound of the steps – far too heavy to be Kreacher's – reached their ears, coming from outside the room, only seconds before her father walked in, quite bleary-eyed. Perfect, Izzy thought sarcastically. She was never going to make it out of the house before lunch at that rate…

"Don't tell me you woke up before dawn just for this," Sirius said to his wife the moment he spotted her, a hint of disappointment in his tone.

"Well, something or _someone _always keeps me far too busy to handle this at decent hours so, since I'd better get it done before Christmas, I had to make myself the time," Mia pointed out.

"_Or_," he said with an air of suggestion as he approached her, "you could have saved yourself the work by using magic, therefore letting a certain devoted husband have the pleasure of waking up in a warm bed next to his loving wife the way law itself should dictate mandatory." And then, as if to seal the point, he placed one arm around her, coaxing her into turning his way, and gave her a soft kiss on the lips.

From her seat, Izzy huffed, averting her eyes. "Oh, don't mind me," she mumbled right before it occurred to her that she might just turn that situation into an exit strategy. "In fact, I think I'll just be on my way and give you some privacy."

Before she could even start getting up, her mother was pushing her father away and turning to her with a glare. "Not so fast, Young Lady," she said. "Breakfast first."

Defeated, Izzy huffed.

"Izzybel!" her father said, just then actually taking in her presence in the room. He gave his wife on last kiss on the cheek and made his way to the sofa, taking a seat across from Izzy. "Helping your Mum out with the gift-wrapping?"

"Not really," she answered, sighing as she counted the seconds passing. Was she ever really going to leave?

Her father raised his eyebrows before turning on his seat to face Mia, how stood at the table behind the sofa. "You sure it's a good idea to have her here while you're wrapping presents? She might get a glimpse of her…" he cleared her throat, then changed his tone to a whispering one (still rather loud, to the point that he didn't seem to even be trying to actually hide something from her) "… lump of coal."

Izzy sighed, just giving him an annoyed look rather than protesting when he turned to her. Somehow, she had a feeling that, the more words she gave him, the longer she'd remain hostage there.

"What? No witty reply? No laugh?" he asked, clearly disappointed. He faced his wife again. "What's wrong with her?"

Mia sighed, knowing she couldn't tell him what she believed was, in fact, going on. "She's just a bit cranky – hasn't eaten yet."

"Hum…" Sirius mumbled, nodding as he turned to Izzy again, only then noticing the fact that she seemed dressed to be going out. "What are you all dressed up for, anyway? Don't tell me you're going out at this hour."

"I have errands to run," Izzy told him.

"What kind of errands? It's eight in the morning."

"Shop… stuff," she said.

"Are shops even open at this hour?" Sirius asked, scratching his head.

Behind him, Mia rolled her eyes. "Most be will be in less than half an hour," she pointed out, just as Kreacher materialized only inches away from Sirius, the cracking sound accompanying his appearance nearly making his master jump out of his skin.

"Bloody hell, will you give a bloke a warning?" he said to the house-elf, who paid little attention, just placing the breakfast tray on the coffee table opposite Izzy and eyeing her with concern. "I'm still waking up over here."

"Don't mind him, Kreacher – he should be used to it by now," Mia said, just placing a bow on the last gift she had to wrap. "Now, could you go and wake Harry up? He'd better not sleep late today – his cousins are coming up all the way from Surrey to spend the day with him."

"Kreacher will handle that, Mistress," the house-elf said with a nod before disappearing with a crack.

Satisfied, she turned to Izzy, who still hadn't started eating. "Well? What are you waiting for? Tuck in."

Izzy sighed, torn between her lack of appetite and her hurry to leave. Then, giving in, she reached for a piece of toast and took a bite from it, making a point of looking at her mother as she did so.

"Good girl," Mia said with a smile before approaching her husband and resting her hands on his shoulders from behind, urging him to tilt his head back so he could see her face upside down. "Make sure your daughter cleans everything out on that tray before she leaves. I'm going upstairs to have a shower before the little ones wake up."

Sirius opened his mouth, intending to utter a less than appropriate offer of shower-company, but closed it back once he remembered the fact that his daughter was in the room. "Yes, dear," he dutifully agreed instead, promising himself to leave his earlier plan to the following day. He watched as his wife's upside-down shape made her way out of the room and, once she was gone, started to turn his attention to Izzy. "So, has that toast done any wonders in improving your pitiful mood this morning?"

Izzy responded only with a self-explanatory look as she munched on her toast, which had her father rolling his eyes.

"Okay… someone definitely woke up on the wrong side of the bed today," he commented. "Where's your Christmas Spirit gone? You're usually in a much better mood this time of the year. In fact, I was told by a little bird known to you as 'Mum' that when _someone _was little, she liked Christmas so much that just as soon as Summer was over, she'd start badgering around to have the Christmas tree put up."

"For Merlin's sake, October is hardly the end of Summer," Izzy corrected him, exasperatedly picking up the second piece of toast. "Besides, I was like six at the time! And it wasn't just me wanting it put up months ahead – Harry was exactly the same."

"I was the same about what?" Harry asked, yawning as he walked into the room, clad in pyjamas.

"Going on a three-month Christmas bender," Sirius informed the younger boy as he walked over to the sofa and sat dawn next to him. "But, anyway, Izzybel," he said, turning back to his daughter, "you can imagine my disappointment at knowing that once upon a time there was a little girl nearly crawling up the walls in excitement over Christmas and all I get this year is a surly teenager brooding away on Christmas eve… eve."

"Christmas eve eve…" Harry said, thoughtfully. "There's got to be a better name for today."

"There is: it's called 'the twenty-third of December'," Izzy replied.

"Hilarious," Harry stated dryly.

"Anyway," Izzy said before eating the last piece of toast and chasing it down with the remaining milk, "I'm done here. Now, can I go? I've got stuff to do."

"Oh, you could have gone the moment your Mum left," Sirius said with a shrug. "She said to make sure you cleaned out the tray – I'd have been fine if you'd just taken the food along with you."

Izzy stared at her father for a moment, then let out a deep sound of frustration. "Unbelievable, Dad," she hissed, getting up and walking out of the room with the tray along, livid.

"_What did I do wrong?" _her father called after her as Harry's voice asked him about what had 'crawled up her arse' in the background.

Fuming, she made her way down to the kitchen and, after dropping the tray on the table (earning herself yet another look of concern from Kreacher – the third in less than twenty minutes, if she'd counted them all), approached the fireplace.

"Young Mistress anxious this morning," Kreacher observed as she scrambled around the mantle for the pot of floo powder.

"Young Mistress is just about to take care of that," she replied, grabbing herself a handful of it without looking at him.

Then, stepping into the fireplace, she threw the powder at the floor and directed it to take her to Diagon Alley.

She didn't mind the ash that time around, so determined she was. She didn't even care about the crowd of people inside The Leaky Cauldron, having breakfast or just standing around like lumps on other people's ways as they awaited the opening of the shops secluded from the cold outside – she just pushed past them and walked to her intended destination.

Soon enough, she found herself standing in front of the joke shop, whose sign Verity, the cashier, seemed to just be switching from 'closed' to 'open'. Stopping for a moment before going in, Izzy stood in the cold for several seconds, wishing in her head one last time that things would go well… or not spectacularly bad, at least. Then, taking a breath, she was back to walking, pushing the door open as she made her way in.

Time for the moment of truth, she supposed.

* * *

In his flat upstairs from the joke shop, George Weasley approached the window, watching as hoards of people walked around, spending small fortunes in their hellish last-minute Christmas shopping trips.

He should be downstairs, it occurred to him. The place was bound to be bursting with costumers, yet he seemed to be stalling in what came to going down. Every day that got closer to Christmas, it felt more and more unreal, more and more painful. Christmas Eve was less than a day away and Fred was nowhere to be seen, walking around with charmed mistletoe hanging from a rod so he could hold it over people's heads and make them kiss, as he usually did, to everyone's chagrin…

Christmas had always been his favourite holiday. It was magic, it was fun, it was the perfect time for him and Fred to pull their best pranks. It was, to put it simple, _their _holiday. Well, that and their birthday, April's Fools day itself. But now it was just _his_ Christmas, he thought sombrely. And, in a few months, it would be just _his _birthday. There was no Fred to enjoy it with anymore. The bare notion of it being just his now felt like a travesty, if he'd ever seen one. He didn't feel like celebrating – he felt like he was about to land on the worst day of a world that didn't seem to have had anything other than crappy days in the past few months.

Some were better than others, he had to admit, mainly those days when he could just dive right into work from dawn to dusk, not allowing his mind to even dare drifting to the thought that, once upon a time, working in that shop had been a dream came true – a dream he'd shared with Fred – instead of just an escape from the world around him. But then there were those other days when reality would just come crashing on him, mostly due to an old friend, a family member or… someone that, deep down, still mattered coming by on a jolly mission to fix him. Like the previous day with Izzy…

Before he could even let his mind drift into that dangerous, Izzy-filled forest of thoughts in his mind, a knock on the flat's front door brought him back. He checked his watch – a twenty-five minutes to nine. The shop was open and he should have gotten there long before – likely it was Ron, Verity or Remus… maybe even Lee just checking in on him.

"I'm late, I know," he shouted at the door, walking away from the window, heading towards the bedroom in order to finish getting ready to face the real world. "Just give me ten minutes and I'll be down."

And so, he vanished into the depths of his bedroom, emerging from it roughly six minutes later, ready to go. The moment he stepped foot back out, though, the sound of very loud banging on the door reached his ears.

It couldn't still be the same person as before, could it? Had they really been knocking for over five minutes? He really couldn't tell since he hadn't been able to hear a thing in his bedroom.

Back when Fred and Angelina were still alive and using their (occasionally perverted) little minds to do god-knew-what-sort-of very loud stuff in the former's bedroom, soundproofing every wall around his bedroom had been a primal necessity in order for him to keep his sanity intact. He'd never really gotten around to remove it – it was just one of those things he couldn't bring himself to do, like going into Fred's bedroom or repairing the broken shards of his late brother's favourite toilet-shaped mug of tea, which Fred had accidentally smashed during their rushed move into Auntie Muriel's hellhole the previous year – and the spells seemed to still be as effective as they had been back when they'd been the only barrier between his ears and the far-too-informative noise coming from Fred's bedroom.

The knocking – banging – got louder and louder by the second and George started to gather that it probably wasn't so much about him being late as it was about yet another one of those 'let's bug George a little more' missions. He could just picture it – his family joining forces in a last attempt at a Christmas miracle that would drive him back to the Weasley dining table for turkey, ham and a side of pudding for Christmas Eve. He groaned in annoyance. Merlin, would it never end?

He considered going back into his room to give his ears a rest but, knowing it would probably end up with someone tearing the door down and chasing him there, decided against it.

"Will you keep it down, for Merlin's sake?" he yelled at the door just as he headed to it. When he reached the door and opened it with a sudden move, though, he froze in surprise. It wasn't Bill or Charlie. It wasn't even Ron or Percy or Ginny or his parents. It was Izzy. _Damn,_ he cursed in his mind. Hadn't the previous day been enough?

"Just what the hell is wrong with you?!" she asked him angrily as she pushed her way in. If she hadn't been determined to give him hell before, close to ten minutes of incessant knocking sure had done it for her in terms of bringing her fury up to a whole new level.

"What the hell is wrong with _me_?" he replied. "I wasn't the one practically trying to tear the door down by banging on it! There are easier ways to break your hands if that's what you were aiming for."

"Well, I actually switched to kicking about a minute in," she casually said before giving him yet another angry look. "You still haven't answered my question."

He huffed in frustration, closing the door behind him with a bang, mostly for the sake of trying to avoid catching unwanted attention from downstairs. "What is wrong with me…? Well, Isabelle, give me a minute to think," he sarcastically requested.

"You don't need a minute to give me the obvious answer," she replied. "It's your first Christmas without Fred and he's gone now. I'm not stupid. But that doesn't give you right to treat your family like crap."

"Treat my family like crap?" he asked in disbelief.

"Yes, your family. I won't even get to what a jerk you've been in the past few months, snapping at everyone or avoiding them altogether. But your mother, George… your mother has done nothing but trying to make things better for you and you've done nothing but blowing her off."

"Is this about that stupid Christmas party?"

"_You'_re stupid for calling it that," she accused him. "Look, if you don't want to go, knock yourself out and don't, even though I think that's just idiotic. But at the very least let your mother know it's not because she's done anything wrong. Do you have any idea how upset you've made her?! She broke into tears after dinner yesterday because she thinks she's losing you, George. Have you even given a thought to how you've been acting ever since…"

"Ever since what?" he asked, when he felt her hesitating. "Since Fred died? Well, maybe I was just like this back when he was alive. Maybe you just didn't notice it because him being around acting like the life of the party evened things out."

"That's _not _true," she shouted immediately. "It's not and you know it."

"How can you possibly tell? Fred wasn't dead before."

"No, but he wasn't the one out of the two of you that I was always looking forward to have around!" she informed him. "And now look at this. Look at us! I'm trying to help you – everyone is trying to help you and all you do in return is to treat us like we're contagious!"

He let out a long-suffering huff. "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I don't want to be helped? Maybe I just want to be left alone?"

"Why would you want that? You've got a family who loves you, friends who want to be there for you – if you let them in, Merlin knows things might become easier for you."

"Easier?" he asked in disbelief. "Everywhere I go, people look at me with pity! And then when they open their mouths, it gets even worse: asking me how I am, telling me everything is going to be fine, that time will heal it all, that I need to go on with my life _for the both of us… _It's infuriating! And then you want me to open the doors for them, you want me to go home and take even more nagging from my mother, more patting on the back from my brothers, more pity this time from people I grew up with? Guess what? I don't want it! I don't need it! Everyone can take their wise truths about grief and loss, their words of supposed comfort, their advice and their pity – all in all, the nagging – and keep them away from me. And that includes Mum with her family gatherings and you with your bloody letters."

Something hit her when he said that. "What?"

"What _what_?" he asked in annoyance. "I thought I made myself clear just now."

"Oh, you did," she assured him, her voice taking a colder tone. "You were very clear: as far as you're concerned, we can all take our worry and go to hell with it, your mother and I included," she summarized it.

"You said that part about going to hell, not me," he coldly commented, as if daring her to see if the shoe fitted.

"Sure," she said dismissively, once again cold as ice. "But that part about my letters in particular… I assume you were referring to those letters that were so full of all those things you've just mentioned, all that advice, all that pity and all that… nagging, right?"

There was something odd about the way she constructed the sentence, he thought. It made him feel unsteady, somehow like he was being tested. "Right," he responded nevertheless, just hoping she'd take that and go away.

"Wrong," she corrected him. "You haven't read a word of what I wrote, have you?" she asked. Her tone was lower than before and not nearly as cold. More like… empty all of a sudden. Somewhat broken, matching the look of utter disappointment on her face.

When he didn't respond, she became certain or it. It felt like a punch in the gut – the final strike. All those months of work trying to give him just a little bit of normalcy had been thrown quite literally into a bin. All of a sudden, she knew it. That wasn't the George she loved – her George showed every sign of being gone, having been replaced by some sort of bitter, uncaring version of himself. And she just couldn't take it anymore. Her eyes burned and a big part of her wanted to storm out in tears, but she still forced herself to look composed.

"Alright," she mumbled, a hint of finality in her voice. "You win. There's nothing like having it made clear how pathetic I've been these last few months trying to help you to show me it's time I give up."

Those last three words caught him by surprise. They hit him hard in a way he hadn't been expecting – just moments before, he'd been more than willing to shoo her out like last week's trash, but the moment she said she was giving up, that he'd won, he knew the truth was the opposite. He'd lost. And, just like that, he knew he'd messed up really bad and, for the first time in months, he actually cared about it. "Wait a second…"

"What for?" she interrupted. "It's what you wanted, isn't it? To be left alone with your new bitter and unfunny self, which, by the way, both you and Fred would have hated a year ago. Well, by my account, you've got it. I'm done. So, congratulations, George and happy damn Christmas." And, with that, she turned on her heel and made her way to the door, leaving him standing there looking stunned at her retreating form before closing it with a bang behind her.

Making her way out, she was thankful for managing to hold back the tears until she reached the shop's glass doors. At least that way, no one she knew in the shop would see her like that and go mouthing off to her family about it…

All her wishing aside, Izzy had known it was going to go badly – deep down, she'd known she was always going to come out of it hurting. She'd been hopeful that she was wrong but, in the end, she wasn't – he _had_ hurt her… or at least whomever that person inside him was had.

Of one thing she was sure – that person wasn't George. Not the George she'd laughed with, not the George she'd shared her deepest thoughts with… not the George she'd fallen in love with. That George had apparently been replaced by some bitter, uncaring person she didn't know at all. And, at the moment, she couldn't see him coming back from that.

"_Hey, wait up!_" she heard a very familiar voice saying behind her. "_Izzy, wait up!_"

She ignored it and just kept on walking. She felt that if she stopped, the tears she so hard wanted to keep inside would get even worse.

"_Izzy!_" the voice yelled again, much closer that time. Soon enough, she felt her arm being grabbed and, being made to turn around, found herself face-to-face with Harry. "What's wrong? Why are you crying?" he asked her, apparently unaffected by the mob of people who started to surround him, whispering his name, completely star-struck.

"What? I'm not…" She used her sleeve to wipe her eyes dry. "I'm not crying. I have allergies."

"Allergies?" he asked sceptically. "You've never as much as sneezed because of allergies in your life! And it's winter!"

"Then I have a cold, damn it! Merlin, Harry, just leave it alone, will you? Aren't you supposed to be meeting your cousins or something?"

"Not until half past ten. Besides, something's clearly going on with you," he said just as the overlookers started to whisper around about the Daily Prophet. When Harry turned his face to the building where the newspaper's headquarters were located, he immediately saw a small mob of reporters and photographers coming out of the doors, likely intending to use them as their next headline. "Damn it," he mumbled. "Let's go."

"Go where?" But the question was useless since by the end of the first word she was already being dragged by Harry to the nearest spot clear of people in the alley and apparating them both away.

By the time her feet were back on the ground again, she could swear there were little yellow birds flying around her head like they did in Muggle cartoons. Looking around, she found herself in yet another alley, that one quite unfamiliar. "Where are we?"

"Little alley right around the corner from the Cutty Sark," he stated, grabbing her arm again to make her follow him out of the alley.

"The Cutty Sark!? As in Greenwich?" she asked in disbelief. "What the bloody hell did you take me to Greenwich for? Damn it, Harry! Couldn't you just leave me be?"

"It's the first place that came to my mind – I was here last week observing an auror raid. And, anyway, no, I couldn't just leave you be. Not when you were bloody crying," he replied in annoyance as they reached a busy street. "Tell me what's wrong. And don't give me that crap about allergies again. Or colds. I've known you since you were born."

She pursed her lips together and refused to speak. Couldn't he just leave her alone? She really wanted to be alone… "Just go away, Harry."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Are you sure you want me to? Because I know for a fact you failed your apparition exam and that the tube is on strike today." That part was a lie. He was hoping she wouldn't know better.

If they weren't currently on a Muggle-packed street, she would've tried her luck at hexing the crap out of him. But since they were, she could only groan. "I'll catch a bus then. Maybe even the Knight Bus. I'll even walk if I have to!"

"Well, you won't have to because I'm not leaving you alone while you're fuming so badly there's practically a cloud over your head."

She groaned. "Fine," she mumbled. "But I'm not saying a word."

He shrugged. "If you say so. Just follow me, then," he told her.

She had no choice but to. Maybe if she found a secluded enough place, she could've sent her father or Ginny a patronus asking them to come pick her up but then they'd see her face and ask questions too… as if it wasn't bad enough having Harry on her…

They crossed a couple of streets and walked several yards in silence until she realized where he was taking her just as a blur of green came to view. "Greenwich Park? You're taking me to Greenwich Park?"

"You look like you need to walk off whatever's going on with you. I figured doing it in a park wouldn't be a bad idea," Harry stated.

It wasn't a bad idea, she thought, as much as she hated to admit it. Walking it off did help her calming down and the quiet nature of the park, especially due to the grey and cold winter day discouraging people from spending too much time outdoors, definitely offered a nice setting to do so.

Harry certainly wasn't known for his patience but she had to give him credit for it that day. He endured a good half hour just walking with her stubbornly silent self, not bugging her once to speak out. It was strangely unsettling and, recognising the huge effort he must be doing in the end, she decided to break the silence, if not for anything else, to break the tension

"What are you doing here, anyway?" she asked. "Less than an hour ago, you were walking around the house half-asleep. Did Mum send you to check on me?"

"No, she didn't send me."

Izzy hesitated for a moment. "Did Kreacher?" she asked, recalling those looks he'd been giving her.

Harry huffed. "No," he said, much less convincing that time around, earning himself a look from her. "He didn't send me as much as he hinted that your… bad mood this morning might not just be a passing thing and that you might have gone to the joke shop. I thought I'd come by and check it out."

"Well, you shouldn't have," she mumbled.

He chuckled dryly. "Yeah, right. You were clearly just fine on your own."

"Look, I'm just angry at someone. That's all, okay?" she said. Of course it wasn't really that simple but she wasn't sure how to express it better, anyway. She was angry, she was sad, she was hurt… she wasn't even sure if she could put herself through fighting for George anymore since he didn't even seem to be himself anymore…

Harry raised his eyebrows. "You think I didn't figure that much already?" he asked.

She sighed. "I don't know what else to tell you."

"Well, you could start by saying who I should be cursing right now," he offered.

She rolled her eyes. "You worry about your own fights, Harry, and leave mine for me to handle. You don't have to be a bloody hero all the time."

"It's George, isn't it?"

She turned to him sharply. "Where did that guess come from?"

"Well, for starters from the fact that I saw you storming out of his shop in tears. I just can't picture you rowing with anyone else we know there. I mean, Remus, Ron, Lee or Verity? Why would you be angry at them? But George… well, he's not exactly known for being very nice to people these days, is he? Besides, Ron told me you went to talk to him yesterday and that you were acting all weird about it. I figured there might be a bigger story behind it."

"There is. It's a story about how Ron should mind his own business."

"Oh, leave him alone. He just mentioned it in passing. He wasn't even reading anything into it – he actually thought Ginny had sent you as her attack dog. She didn't, though, did she? She likes to do her own barking and biting," Harry replied with a fond little smile. "So, really, what is going on?"

She considered just telling him for a moment. He was, after all, being pretty nice about it… Still, after a few seconds, she decided against it. "You don't want to know what's going on," she declared.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because you're a bloke. Blokes don't want to know about this kind of thing," she said.

"What kind of thing? Wait," he said, after a second, "you're not implying this about…" he vaguely gestures towards her middle, avoiding all kind of eye contact "… you know, are you?

Izzy was confused. "No, I don't _know. _What on Earth are you referring to?"

"That… phase. You know, that time of the month when you girls get all… sensitive. Because if it is, you're right. It might be better if you talk to your mu… ouch!" he yelled when she punch him on the arm. "Bloody hell, that hurt! What was that for?"

"You're a moron!" she nearly yelled. "Of course it's not about _that. _Do I seem that… volatile that I'd just burst into tears over something harmless because the time of the month calls for it? Besides, do you have any idea how much girls hate it when blokes just guess everything is about their per…?"

"Alright, alright, I get the picture. I'm sorry. I was just guessing. I mean, you said, it was something guys didn't want to talk about and that is definitely something that guys don't want to talk about!"

"Well, clearly that's not what I was referring to," she replied.

"What was it then? Because if you keep me guessing, next thing you'll know I'll be assuming something equally stupid like… I dunno, that you and George were rowing over some sort of secret romance between you or something," he said.

Izzy went very quiet at that, which on itself was a bit of a giveaway since a wrong assumption wouldn't have been worth at least a snide comment from her under normal circumstances. That wasn't really how she would have wished he'd gotten it…

He did, however, and in a matter of seconds, he was stopping on his tracks and turning to her with a look of mild panic on his face. "Oh, you are _joking_."

Once again, she didn't respond, just looking away. It would only take that damn snide comment denying the whole thing for him to get off her back. She didn't have it in her to speak it, though.

"Izzy, say something!" he insisted.

"What do you want me to say? You've got it all figured out, haven't you?" she spat back.

"You and George? Really?" he asked in disbelief. "_Really?!"_

Izzy took a breath. Merlin, she was in no mood for him to throw a hissy fit over it. "Oh, shut up, will you?" she told him.

"But… but…" he mumbled, looking very confused and unsure of what to say. "How… when… where?!" There was a pause before he spoke again. "Why?"

She sighed knowing that, as much as she felt like it, leaving him hanging there might not be such a good idea. "Okay, before I say anything, note this: if you breathe a word to Dad – even just a little hint – I will kill you in your sleep."

He only needed to give her a sceptical look in response for her to rethink her threat.

She huffed. Alright, she might be exaggerating. "Okay, maybe not kill _kill_. But I _will_ use your broomstick as firewood. And keep in mind that, yes, I could do it in a blink of an eye because I'm not some Quidditch nut who sees a bloody flying broomstick as anything more than an overpriced cleaning tool some idiot decided would make a nice way to get around. Which isn't the case, by the way."

Harry raised his eyebrows at that last comment for a moment. "Alright, leave my Firebolt alone, would you? Do you really think I want to sleep with one eye open for months wondering what you'll do to me as punishment for telling on you to Sirius? Or Ginny, for that matter, who I have no doubt already knows about this and will, of course, take your side."

"Add Mum to the list," Izzy said.

"She knows?" he asked, surprised.

"Mum always knows. She knew it before even I did."

"Blimey…" he mumbled. "Alright, I've already made it clear that I won't tell. Just tell me how it happened already, because I didn't even know you and George got along all that much. How long has this been going on?"

Izzy crossed her arms and resumed walking, silent for a moment. "Nothing has been going on," she replied as he came after her. "Not really. We're not… we're not together. We never really were. It always stopped at the 'almost'."

"But how long have you… you know… felt that way?" Harry asked.

"Oh," she mumbled. "For a while. Since before Fred…" she didn't need to finish, as Harry's nod confirmed he knew what she meant. "Maybe even long before that. I guess I started to notice just before Bill's wedding."

"Bill's wedding? That was nearly a year and a half ago!"

Izzy nodded. "I know. It got more intense during the war. We wrote to each other a lot while I was at Hogwarts – we had our own way to get the messages through, so we could pretty much speak about everything without fearing it would be intercepted. He always listened and he always… he always cared so much. I could tell him anything… well, except for the fact that I fancied him. I guess that was what made the fancying become something more."

"But it never happened?" Harry asked.

She looked down, shaking her head. "It was close. But then… well, there was the battle. I think you can guess the rest."

"Fred died and he became the George we know today," Harry guessed, receiving a nod in return. "He's a mess, Iz. You're setting yourself up for a lot of work there if you asked me. Trust me, I know." And he really, really did. There had probably been no bigger mess than him during the war. And, relief aside, in the first weeks after the battle, he'd been kind of a piece of work as well.

There had been nightmares and mood swings and moments of endless guilt in his head… the amount of times Ginny had needed to yell at him in order to put him in his place was kind of shocking. He could swear there were times when she'd just wanted to kill him, so worn her patience was, yet she hadn't gone anywhere – she should probably get a trophy for that or something. Actually, he might just get her one of those. Still, trophies aside, there had been times when he wouldn't have wished himself to anyone, so, as fond of he was of George and as much as he wanted Izzy to be happy, he couldn't help wanting to warn her of the challenge…

"Setting myself up?" she asked him in disbelief. "I think it's already far past that, Harry." The path they'd been walking took a turn and, suddenly, they were in some sort of pond area full of benches. Sick of walking, Izzy headed to one and took a seat, Harry doing the same. "I've been writing to him for months, every single week except that one I was at the hospital. Not fussing or anything – I think I only mentioned what happened to Fred once because I really felt like it would be insulting if I didn't acknowledge it at least one time. But mostly, I focused on life and stuff… things we used to talk about when I was at Hogwarts and that always made me laugh and feel better without really trying. I was hoping it would do the same for him. He never answered and I never bugged him to – I thought he was reading them, at least."

"Let me guess: he wasn't," Harry said.

Izzy chuckled. "It's that easy to foresee, isn't it?" she asked with a dry laugh. "But I didn't. How blind could I be that I didn't even consider the possibility that he was just throwing the damn letters away?"

"Hey! You can't be blamed for not to just expecting the worst from people," he pointed out. "Especially when those people are your friends."

"Well, I wish I had. Maybe then I'd have gotten the message that he doesn't want me there… he doesn't want anyone. He just wants to be that bitter person now… and maybe that's all he is anymore. If I'd figured it out soon enough, maybe I wouldn't be so exhausted now. I mean, do you have any idea how draining it is trying to fight for someone who hates you?"

Harry gave her a disbelieving look. "Oh, come on, there's a wide line between being a git for not reading your letters and hating you. He's just acting up. Why would he possibly hate you?"

"He has his reasons. Better reasons than you'd guess," she said cryptically. "Please don't make me tell you about them," she said before he could ask. "I'm just… I'm done. I give up."

Hearing that, Harry chuckled. Actually _chuckled_, earning himself a murderous look from her.

"What the hell are you laughing at?" she asked in disbelief.

"You: giving up," he said, sounding quite amused.

"_How is that supposed to be funny?!" _she hissed. "I've just made a huge, hard decision and you're laughing at me! What's wrong with you?!"

"Nothing's wrong with me. It's just that sometimes you don't know yourself _at all,_" he said. "Of course you're not _giving up._"

"Yes, I am! I've just said I am. Are you telling me I'm wrong about it?"

"No. It's your life – you're the one who gets to decide if you give up on George or not. I'm simply saying that you are _not _giving up just like that."

If she showed any more fury in her eyes over how ridiculous he was starting to sound, they might actually blaze. "I will drag you to that pond and drown you in it," she threatened.

Harry sighed. "Oh, shut up and listen for a moment, will you? Do you remember when we were little and Lulu was trying to teach me how to fly an actual broomstick?"

"What does that have to do with anything?!" she nearly yelled.

"Just bear with me for a few minutes," he said. "Do you or do you now remember?"

"Of course I remember! You were like eight and Mum wouldn't let me learn at the same time because I was 'too little'. But Lulu always left the brooms conveniently unlocked at night, so we'd sneak out in the morning before everyone was up and take a few clandestine spins," she recalled.

"No. The way I recall it, you were a pigheaded little brat who threatened to tell Mum about my flying unsupervised unless _I _taught you everything Lulu taught me because Merlin forbid there was something I could do that you couldn't do too."

"Hey! I wanted to learn."

"Oh, please, you didn't even care about flying. You just didn't want me to be ahead, which I was at the end anyway, since you were just… I don't think there's a word to describe how bad you were at it."

"I was six!"

"You couldn't even sit straight on the thing! Anyway," he said when she was about to protest again, "you weren't any good at it and, at the end of each try, you'd get fed up and swear you were never getting anywhere near a broom again… until next time I was trying to sneak myself a ride you'd show up again and, once more, threaten me into teaching you. No matter how many times you said you gave up, you'd always come back for more and this went on and on and on until one day you managed to actually fly well enough that people wouldn't point and laugh," he told her. "You'll never be Gwenog Jones but if you need to get on a broom, you probably won't make a spectacle of yourself. And you know why? Because you're a pigheaded nutter."

"Thanks," she said dryly. "I ought to have that printed on a mug."

"I mean it as a good thing, you know?" he pointed out. "One has to be pretty brave to be that determined. A bit reckless too in order to ignore all those cuts and bruises you got every time you fell – thank Merlin Lulu never asked questions about those –, but then again, who am I to criticize you about that? I did wrestle a Mountain Troll when I was eleven without thinking of how many ways it could crush me like a bug, didn't I?"

"Just one of many occasions when your sanity came into question," Izzy commented.

"That's true. I guess it takes a nutter to know another," he gave in. "But, anyway, this is not me telling you that you should go on fighting; this is not me saying it'll be a breeze for you to go and chase a bloke who is currently very messed up. This is me warning you about yourself: you nearly drove yourself insane trying to learn how to fly, which is not something you even really like; if you really want to give up on George, who from what I gather you actually _do_ like, that's going to take a whole lot more than just saying it out loud, Izzy. And you'd better be sure of what you want if you decide to try and find a definitive way to achieve that."

Izzy looked down at her hands. He might be right. She knew he might be. She wanted to give up, yet at the same time she didn't. She wanted George back but she wasn't even sure he was there anymore without his brother. And she was just so damn tired of looking and hoping…

"I want Fred to be alive," she mumbled. "I want George to be George again and I'm not sure if he can be George without Fred. And I want Angelina alive too because without her Fred will be the one not being Fred and if Fred's not Fred, George may still not be George. Am I making sense?"

"Yes… I think."

"Good," she mumbled. "Am I asking for too much?"

Harry sighed. "Depends on who you're asking that from," he pointed out. "If it's from me, that would be a yes. I may be regularly referred as the 'Chosen One' but raising the dead is a bit beyond my capabilities."

Izzy let out a long breath. "Yeah… I thought so. Thanks, anyway."

"You're welcome," he said.

They were silent for a few moments, just watching a couple of kids – a boy and a girl, probably siblings – feeding the ducks on the pond. At some point the littlest appeared to run out of duck feed and decided to steal herself a share of the older one's, which led to a rather annoyed exchange of words, followed by a contest of which one could make the ugliest face to the other. Izzy chuckled to herself as the mother showed up and scolded the pair, mostly because those two seemed a perfect allegory of how she and Harry had been like back in the day.

"She started it, you know?" Harry pointed out, referring to the two kids. "They always start it, those annoying little sisters. The bane of a bloke's existence."

"Shut up," Izzy mumbled, fighting back a little smile. "You know, I really thought you'd bolt once even a hint of feelings talk came up," she commented. "Part of me was kind of hoping for it, actually…"

"Well, sorry to disappoint…" he said. "It might've been the shock that kept me grounded. I mean… I'd sooner have guessed that you'd had a fling with Malfoy than with George…"

"_What?" _she asked, looking appalled.

"I'm not saying I'd have preferred it!" he said immediately. "Merlin, _no. _It's just that, well, you're always trying to find ways to annoy me, so whenever I pictured the worst you could possibly do to drive me insane, I usually ended up thinking of you dating Malfoy or… I dunno, mailing baby pictures of me to the Prophet or spreading the rumour that I was born with a tail or something equally weird. But George… I swear he's never, _ever_ crossed my mind as your type."

"I don't have a _type_," she protested. "I haven't dated even remotely close to enough blokes to warrant myself a 'type'."

Harry sighed. "You know what I mean – it just surprised me, okay?"

"In a good way, I hope?"

"Why do you care? I thought you were planning to give up on him," he pointed out, trying to be clever. She glared murderously, which he mostly ignored, instead answering her earlier question. "I'm still making up my mind about him, though. Right now, he's several points above Malfoy, though quite a few below every bloke in the world I usually like and who's never made you cry," he declared.

"Harry, how many times do I need to say that I wasn't really…?"

"Oh, yes, you were. Don't even bother trying. Anyway, I get how he must be feeling like right now without Fred. As a person who's lost a good share too, I do. But as your brother… what the hell is he doing making you think that he hates you?" he pointed out.

She didn't respond. It was all so bloody dual in her mind. She wanted to fight but at the same time she didn't. George had a right to be bitter but at the same time he didn't. And so, Harry approved but at the same time he didn't. The confusion of it all was actually starting to give her a headache.

"When the hell did you get so… grown up?" she found herself telling Harry at some point. "Don't get me wrong – you're still a moron every once in a while but much less than usual. You're kind of a grown-up now."

Harry chuckled. "Well, one might say that being on a run for your life for a year tends to make you grow, though that whole part about me being a 'grown-up' is a bit debatable. Mum still lectures me all the time about cleaning my room," he pointed out.

"Yeah, but when she does, you actually clean it – not pristinely or anything, but at least you don't just shove stuff into your wardrobe and under the bed anymore," she replied.

"Well, I'd never hear the end of it if another boggart found its way under my bed…" he pointed out.

Izzy chuckled, recalling the occasion. It had happened a couple of weeks after Harry had come back – she imagined the boggart had been under the bed for a while but it certainly hadn't made its presence known until one afternoon when Ginny had 'accidentally tripped and fallen straight on Harry's bed, somehow bursting half the buttons of her shirt open on the way down'. "Yes, I imagine you heard enough from Mum last time. And Dad, when she made him have another talk with you about the wonders of contraceptive charms."

He looked away. To be honest, that time Sirius had given him more advice on not getting caught when he was trying to fool around with his girlfriend, than about the mechanics of… said fooling around. "I'd rather not think about that… Anyway," he said, changing the subject, "do you want me to take you home now?"

"Merlin, no," Izzy said. "If Mum sees me, she'll know something happened like she always does and I really don't want to go through this all over again." She paused for a moment. "Just drop me off somewhere in London – I'll figure it out from there."

"Don't you think being gone for long might bring up a few questions of its own?" Harry pointed out.

Izzy sighed. "I guess… though I'd rather deal with those questions than the others."

Harry chuckled. "You know, you could always come with me. If I sent home a patronus saying I'd taken you along to spend the day with me and my cousins, I doubt anyone would question that."

"I couldn't do that," she said. "You're still getting to know each other. I'd just be… well, crashing that party."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on. They probably won't mind. You're my family, they're my family too… honestly, you'd probably offer a unique testimony of what it is like to be family to me. You know, give them a fair warning to run while they can."

Izzy hit him on the arm. "You're an idiot."

"And you're a grouch today," he replied. "Quinn's the perfect cure for that, you know? You couldn't be grumpy around her if you tried – I bet even Mad-Eye would break a smile around her if he was still alive to do it. Plus, she loves meeting magical people. You'd make her day," he said. "Come on. What do you say? Can you really say 'no' to making a little girl's day far more interesting than it would be under normal circumstances?"

She sighed. "I suppose it beats going home to be on the wrong end of all sorts of concerned looks. Besides, if Kreacher got a whiff that something was wrong, he'd probably find a way around my orders to go and beat George into a bloody pulp…"

"Kreacher would do what?" Harry asked, both confused and horrified.

Izzy sighed. "Long story…"

* * *

When the clock reached noon and George hadn't made it into the shop yet, Remus Lupin started to worry.

It wasn't that they weren't able to cope with the clientele without him – sure, the place was packed, but between himself, Verity, Ron and Lee Jordan, they had things fairly under control. That fact was that it just wasn't like him – not at all. For all his faults and all his grief, working at the shop was something George faced daily almost religiously, now more than ever. It was his way of dealing, Remus supposed, and no one really complained about it since, as long as he showed up to work, they could always keep an eye on him.

So, when it was nearly four hours past the shop's opening hour and George had neither come down nor sent down word about his lateness, one could say they might have reason to worry. Therefore, despite how busy the shop was, Remus couldn't help needing to investigate, starting with asking Verity if she'd seem George at all that day, considering she'd been the first to arrive that morning.

"Not really," she said as she wrapped up a box for a client. "But I think he was upstairs when I arrived. I mean, Izzy Black went up just as soon as the shop opened and she was up there long enough that she must've talked to him."

Remus was more than a little surprised by that. "Izzy was here?" he asked sceptically, receiving a nod in return. "Are you sure it was her?"

Verity nodded. "Yes. I've seen with Ginny plenty of times. Brown-haired girl, not very tall. Not sure what colour her eyes are but her hair's a bit shorter than it was last time I remember seeing her…"

The werewolf nodded, recognizing the description even though he felt a bit lost about it. What on earth would Izzy Black want with George? "Did she tell you what she wanted?"

The girl shook her head. "I'll tell you this, though – she didn't look happy. And she seemed even worse once she left. I reckoned Ginny asked her to pass some sort of message along and George decided to go ahead and shoot the messenger. Poor girl…" she commented.

Remus scratched his head. Yes, that could be it. What else would she possibly want from George? "Thanks, Verity. I think I'll go up and check on him," he stated.

Verity nodded. "Could you… could you not tell him I told you this? You know he doesn't like us talking about him behind his back these days…"

"Don't worry. I won't breathe a word," he promised before making his way to the shop's backroom and climbing up the stairs leading to the upper floors.

He reached George's flat after a few seconds and, not surprisingly, a couple of minutes of knocking went unanswered. While in normal circumstances he'd have gotten the message that the boy wanted to be alone and walked away, that time Remus used his wand to unlock the door as one of the few people that were cleared to manipulate every layer of protection wards in the shop and the adjoining flat – 'in case of emergency,' George had made it very clear when he'd given him that privilege. Well, as far as he was concerned, that _was _an emergency.

It didn't take very much looking once he went in. Soon enough, he found George sitting on the sofa – at first sight, perfectly fine… physically, at least –, in the middle of what to be dozens of envelopes and pieces of parchment, spread all over the cushions, some on the floor, others on a nearby chair. He still seemed to be reading from one of those letters, a slightly panicked look on his face as he did so.

"George," the older man said, hesitantly. "Is everything alright?"

"No," he mumbled, still looking at the parchment as he barely took mind of his presence. "Not even close."

The werewolf was immediately alarmed. What could have Izzy possibly said that had garnered such a reaction from someone who'd been barely living in the past few months? "What is it?" he asked.

George looked up at him, the panicked look still on. He looked far more aware than Remus had seen him in the past six months and, despite the heavy look on his face, he couldn't help feeling that his demeanour might just be a bit of a good sign.

"What do you do when you realize you've just mucked up worse than you've ever had in your life?" George whispered.

**A/N2: And so here is the big breakthrough. I hope you all liked it - it sure was an interesting chapter to write. Feedback is welcome! Review!**


	4. Remorse

**A/N: Caution: You are about to read a very long chapter. Honestly, I thought about splitting it into 2 of them, but it just seemed cruel to make you wait. I hope you like it, despite it featuring the word 'sorry' being repeated fairly often.**

**Enjoy!**

"_What do you do when you realize you've just mucked up worse than you've ever had in your life?_"

That was a pretty interesting question, George thought, reflecting on his own words. Not particularly easy to answer – even Remus, who was a fairly insightful bloke (and might even have his own share of experience on the matter, considering his early history with Tonks), had looked at him blankly at first and stammered around a bit before sensibly suggesting that he might want to start by apologizing for whatever it was that he'd done.

It wasn't bad advice, George had to admit, but nowhere near enough or as easy to put into practice as it might seem. An apology was a start at the most – if it was accepted (a big 'if', he was aware), it might open up a door for him at the most. What was beyond that door, however, was a long path of change…

He couldn't go on the way he was right now – that much was clear in his mind at that point. Merlin knew that part of him just wanted to ignore that epiphany and save himself the trouble that changing things was sure to take but he knew he'd have to if he wanted any chance of ever making up to the people he'd hurt. The fear was still there, though: the dread of pity and more overbearing advice. But now there was some hope too – hope that he'd been wrong about everything. Just as wrong as he'd been about Isabelle.

The tone of her voice, the look on her face… everything about her reaction to realizing he hadn't read a single one of her letters had led him to digging them up from that drawer he'd been shoving them into for months. And he'd read – Merlin, he'd read and read… and then realized just how wrong he'd been. Because, yes, there were stupid people in the world – people who patronized him and pitied him. But there were also people who knew him – people who knew him so well that they gave him exactly what he'd been needing those past few months: normalcy.

He couldn't think of a better way to describe Izzy's letters than that word. Normalcy. Comfort. Home. An escape a hundred times better than the one he'd been leaning onto the past few months in the shape of incessantly working in the shop. Anyone who read them might've thought they were some sort of chronicle of life in Hogwarts: classes, Ginny's antics as the new Quidditch Captain, Luna making it into permanent Game Commentator, Zacharias Smith being actually diagnosed with Loser's Lurgy, Sirius's feud with the new Potions Master teacher who Izzy never named but actually sounded quite familiar… In all, she was telling him a story: a story he found himself fully invested in by the third letter, that gave him something other than grieving Fred to think of and that might have even made him laugh if, by then, he wasn't so panicked at the thought that he might have just lost Izzy for good.

It wasn't until then that he realized just how badly he'd screwed up. It wasn't until then that he actually realized that if Fred was there to see him acting the way he was acting – ostracizing everyone around him, feeling sorry for himself, misjudging people and hurting them in the process, making his mother miserable (Merlin's pants, he couldn't believe he'd made_ his own mother _cry!)… –, he would have absolutely hated it… no, hated _him_.

So, he needed to fix it. He needed to grow up, stop acting like he was the only person in the world grieving Fred. And, as Remus had pointed out, the first step to achieve that would be apologizing. The question now was where to start… or who to start with.

There were plenty of candidates – that much was for sure – and the most obvious one at the moment, Izzy, he didn't even know what to say to beyond the 'I'm sorry' part… and he damn well owed her more than that if he wanted to have any chance at changing her mind from giving up on him.

So, as much as he yearned to have that fire put out and ease the regret he was feeling within, he accepted that there were things he needed to do before apologizing to Izzy – one thing, at least: he needed to go home and set things right with his family. Maybe then she'd see he'd listened…

And, as such, there he stood, a few yards away from his childhood home for the first time since his brother had been buried, having apparated from his flat shortly after Remus had left with the promise that he and the others would keep the shop running in his absence.

He'd been mindful not to land straight inside the house. He supposed he felt like that would be intruding, after so many months being… well, the way he'd been. Plus, it seemed fair to give his mother a chance to shut the door on his face like he'd metaphorically done so many times to his family in the past few months – not, he added in his mind, that he had any reason to believe she'd do such a thing. Molly Weasley would never shut the door on one of her children's faces, even if she'd been the mother to Voldemort himself. Still, it was the intention that counted.

And so he walked down the hill, past the fields he'd incessantly run on with Fred as a child, headed to the back door that led to the kitchen, where he knew his mother was bound to be around that time of the day.

She must've seen him through the window or something of that sort because, by the time he was maybe twenty yards away from the door, Molly Weasley opened as she moved to stand on the doorway, staring at him like she was seeing Merlin himself approach.

She seemed like she was about to cry – he hoped she didn't. It seemed so, so wrong that his own mother would cry over his mere presence, even if out of relief. It just served to show what a number he'd been doing on everyone – he was no better than Percy had been during the war.

"George," he heard her whisper once he was about four or five steps away from the porch. "Georgie…"

He bit on his lower lip, unsure of what to say. Maybe a greeting would be a decent enough way to get started. "Hi, Mum," he said.

Molly let out a sob the moment his voice sounded and took a few steps forwards, closing the distance between them as she wrapped him in a bone-crushing Molly Weasley home. "You're home," she said, her voice sounding as if she had a cold.

"I…" he started, stopping himself at the first word. What could he tell her then? He was home – physically, he was. But that didn't mean he was anywhere near okay – not even close. He could see the harm he'd done and he could allow himself to care, now that Izzy's words and his mistreatment of her showed him how badly he'd been misjudging people… but, Merlin, did that more cowardly part of him want to run away and hide in the deepest cave known to man. All the way, he had to fight it off and Merlin only knew how exhausting that was. So, he didn't want to raise his mother's hopes – he didn't want to break her heart again if he failed. But he sure enough didn't want to ruin that moment of relief for her either… and he wanted even less to use that fear of failing at making up for everything he'd done as an excuse not to do it. "I'm sorry, Mum. For everything. I'm really, really sorry."

But Molly didn't seem to care for his words. She just shook her head like they were nothing. "I'll have none of that, you silly boy. None of that." She pulled back and he felt the pang of guilt again once he noticed how red her eyes were, probably from trying too hard to hold back tears, as she looked at him in complete wonder – one would think it was both him and Fred standing there… but it wasn't. It would never be, as much as such a fate seemed against nature itself. It was only him and, despite that, his mother seemed just so… relieved. She cupped his face in a thoughtful manner, her lip trembling a little. "You're home – that's all that matters."

Everything about her words, her tone, the expression on her face, touched him deeper than anything about her had before. So, regretful of everything he'd put her through lately, he knew he needed to make it right by his mother. "Is it too late for me to reclaim my seat at the table for Christmas?"

She looked like she might just burst into tears at that moment. "There's no need to reclaim anything. It would always be yours," she assured him. Then, smiling, she brought his face down just so she could kiss his forehead as if he was a little kid and hugged him. Seconds later, once she pulled back, she had tears on her eyes again (happy tears, he hoped) as she attempted to compose herself. "Oh, silly me," she said suddenly, letting out a nervous laugh. "You're back home for the first time in months and I'm making you stand at the doorway. Well, come on in. 't's still home. And you're staying for lunch."

There wasn't a question in her tone – he was staying either he wanted to or not, even if they had to chain him to the table itself. But Merlin knew he wouldn't fight her even if he wanted to – he had no right to be difficult after she'd just welcomed him home without a word of resentment –, so he let her usher him around to the kitchen table and disapprovingly point out how 'thin' he'd gotten (which he _hadn't_). "Honestly, what have you been feeding yourself?" she asked as she shoved a plate with half a fruit cake on it in front of him and made her way to the stove in order to check on lunch, likely more convinced than ever that his very survival depended on that day's stew.

"The same things I have always fed myself," he replied, ignoring the cake (in all her eagerness to feed him, Molly seemed to have forgotten that he – and basically every single one of his siblings except for _Percy_ – hated fruit cake).

"No good, then. Don't think I don't know what you boys keep in your pantry – you'd live on Chocolate Frogs and Cauldron Cakes if you thought you could get away with…" Then she stopped, suddenly freezing upon realizing she'd just referred to George and Fred not only in the plural but also in the present. "Oh, honey, I am so sorry…" she apologized, turning around to see her son with a sad look on his face.

He shook his head, though. "It's okay, Mum. I am not going to bolt," he assured her quietly, prompting Molly to let out a breath she hadn't even realized she was holding. In truth, there had been a pang of sadness in his heart when he'd heard her referring to him and Fred as a whole – it made him miss Fred like a severed limb because, Merlin, there was nothing more he wanted right then than being referred as 'one of them' rather than just 'him'. Accurately, if possible. But he couldn't hold it against his mother – he wouldn't. "Listen, Mum, I know you don't want to hear it, but I really am very sorry…"

Molly shook her head again. "You have nothing to be…"

"I do, Mum. You _know_ I do," he countered. "For the past few months I have been…" he paused, considering an word to use that wouldn't garner his mother's disapproval – she probably would have a problem with him calling himself an arse or an idiot or possibly even an inconsiderate jerk "…very insensitive," he finally settled on.

"You were grieving, dear," she told him. "There was no one in the world you were closer to than your brother and you lost him so suddenly… You were lost yourself."

"I know," he admitted. He'd been lost – he still felt lost. That was beside the point, though. "But that didn't give me the right to forget that I wasn't the only one who lost him. And it surely didn't give me the right to make you cry, as if you hadn't already cried enough for Fred."

Molly pursed her lips for a moment. "One day, when you have children of your own, you will realize that, at one point or another, they'll make you want to shed a tear," she told him after a few seconds.

He sighed. Good old Mum, he thought. She wanted nothing more than to welcome home her prodigal children as if they'd done no wrong. George loved her for it, of course, but, as much as he was thankful for the welcome, for her completely twisting his expectation and only badgering about his near malnutrition (which, again, he _wasn't_ suffering from), he couldn't helping feeling like a scolding might actually make him feel better. The more welcome he received, the more unconditional love, the worse he realized he'd been. "Can't you yell at me a little?" he asked. "I'd be far more comfortable if someone yelled at me a little. I promise I won't run."

"Don't be silly, Georgie," his mother dismissed him. "Now, I need to finish lunch and to floo your father to make sure he's not late for it. Oh, he'll be so happy to see you too, dear! And your siblings too! Charlie is coming from Romania today, you know? He's arriving very late, though – Bill even offered to let him stay at his home tonight so we wouldn't have to stay up too late. Bless him… all that cooking tomorrow, I'll have to be up before dawn," she rambled on, as relief often caused her to do.

George sighed – it was clear his mother wasn't the least bit interested in scolding him… Still, at the mention of his siblings, he was suddenly reminded they weren't supposed to be alone in the Burrow. "And Ginny – where is she?"

"Upstairs, doing her homework," Molly replied. "Not by choice, of course. But she was out yesterday most of the day and today she's going out on the afternoon too – Merlin knows if I don't make that girl do her homework when I manage to catch her at home, she'll be spending her ride back to Hogwarts in the train getting it done."

He was silent for a moment, mostly recalling the many, many times when he and Fred had done just the same – of course, they'd mostly chosen to do homework during the train ride because there was a chance that, if they did it at home, their mother might see them and disapprove of the divide-and-conquer method they'd adopted in order to tackle their assignments… Honestly, how unproductive was it, wasting hours doing the same quiz when they could just take alternating questions and then trade?

"I should probably go talk to her," he said after about a minute. "Ginny, I mean." She probably wouldn't like it if she just came down and found him casually there.

"She'll he happy to see you," Molly said as she turned to him, wiping her hands on her apron.

"Will she?" George thought aloud before he could stop himself.

His mother frowned. "Of course she will," Molly stated with certainty. "Why wouldn't she?"

He'd probably need more than a few minutes to name all the reasons why anyone who knew him might not be too thrilled to see him at the moment, considering his behaviour for the past few months. Yet, with Ginny in particular, it all came down to a strange moment that had taken place the day before, roughly an hour after he'd basically shooed Izzy out of the shop.

He'd still been stocking shelves and, upon glancing out of the shop's window display, he'd found himself spotting Ginny standing outside with Harry, who'd appeared to be chatting with Tonks. Soon enough, his sister had looked in as well and, in a rather uncomfortable moment of eye contact, shot him the grandfather of all glares. Honestly, if Harry hadn't noticed it and quickly whisked her away, George wouldn't have been surprised if his sister had leaped through the window itself and launched herself at his jagular… But, of course, his mother was completely oblivious to such an event, so her giving him yet another 'don't be silly' sort of look was perfectly understandable. "Never mind," he finally told her, mostly so she wouldn't press the matter.

Molly nodded. "Well, go on, then – lunch shouldn't take more than a half hour to be ready," she declared, making her way to the stove again. "And don't think that having been away all this time will spare you from setting the table, young man. Or your sister, for that matter."

And, just like that, for a moment or two it seemed like he'd never left. If he'd had any doubt he was home until then, that surely had set it aside.

Of course, the moment didn't last very long once he started climbing up the stairs. Upon reaching the floor his room and Fred's had been on, George found himself stopping on his heels and staring at the firmly closed door containing it. A thousand different feelings nearly knocked him off balance just from looking at the door – he felt like he was facing Pandora's box itself.

There was no lack of nostalgia in every corner of the Burrow – but no room contained more memories, more dreams, more… slivers of potential futures that would never be than that one. Just thinking of it made the cowardly voice in his head telling him to leave sound much louder than before – honestly, if it wasn't from the words he'd just shared with his mother, it might have actually succeeded on sending him on his way.

But things were different then – he was more aware than ever of how much he had to make up for, how much pain he'd caused. So, he held strong, clinging to the rational part of himself who told him that it was just a room, that it changed nothing and didn't tell him a thing he didn't already know. And then, once he found his footing again, he walked away – not down the stairs headed to an exit but further up towards Ginny's room, as planned.

He only allowed himself to breathe once he was standing mere feet away from his sister's door, still reeling on the effect the damn room (actually, the damn room's _door_) had in him. He knew it was just a room but all the feelings attached to it had scared the living daylights out of him. If just standing a few feet away from it had caused him to freeze, Merlin knew what might happen if he actually went in… as such, he made a mental note to ask his mother to let him crash with Ron over Christmas. It was best to stay away from his old room for the moment, he could tell.

With that settled, he forced himself to move on and turned to knock on Ginny's closed door. The moment he did so, he heard some sort of commotion inside and, likely out of habit, opened the door even as she said 'just a moment' to try and see what she was up to.

He caught her just as she was rushing to the wireless device she had in her room, trying to shut it off in an attempt to hide the fact that she'd been listening to that week's Quidditch digest while, judging by the many Quidditch-field-shaped diagrams drawn on the pieces of parchment all over her bed, sorting out game strategies for the following term. Clearly, homework was the least thing in her mind.

"I was just a brea…" she started saying before turning around only to find him standing at the door rather than her mother. He didn't see much relief in her face, though – if there was any, it was certainly overshadowed by the clear disbelief that led her to gape at him for about twenty seconds. "What the…?" she mumbled at some point.

"Er… hi," he said awkwardly.

She gaped at him some more. "'Hi'_?_" she repeated in disbelief. "'_Hi'?!_" She grabbed a partially inflated Quaffle from somewhere and looked like she might just throw it at him.

"Yes, _hi_. That is still a standard form of greeting, isn't it?" he asked as he instinctively braced himself.

"Not after you spend months being a jerk to everyone, it isn't!" Ginny replied.

"Well, what else do you want me to say, then?" he said.

"I don't know!" his sister said, slightly confused. She put the Quaffle down, though, which he saw as a good sign. "What are you doing here?"

"Trying to set things right," he told her, ensuing the beginning of long moment of thoughtful silence. "I apologized to Mum," he informed her after some time.

Ginny raised her eyebrows. "You did?"

He nodded. "Yeah. And now I was kind of trying to apologize to you too."

She seemed sceptic for a moment. "What happened?" she asked, apparently ignoring the last part.

"What do you mean?" he replied, confused as to what she was referring to.

His sister huffed. "I mean what happened between yesterday and today," she specified. "Because yesterday I asked my best friend, who you used to listen to, to talk some sense into you and you swatted her away like a fly before she could say anything. And yet here you are, less than a day later, all apologetic. Something _has _to have happened," she pointed out. "And if you call it a 'Christmas miracle', I will hurt you."

He gulped – the mention of Isabelle made him more than a little uneasy. Clearly, Ginny wasn't happy about him having ignored her the previous day and that was the least of the wrongs he'd done to Izzy in the past twenty-four hours. "It's complicated."

"Uncomplicate it, then!" she told him with a no-nonsense tone in her voice.

He took another breath. "Somebody told me a few harsh truths that I really needed to hear," he explained, making a point of looking away from her. "Of course, by the time I realized I should be thanking her for that, I'd already mucked it all up and hurt her… It made me realize that I may have been misjudging some people for a while."

He expected his sister to be quick to reply but, when he turned to face her, he found her glaring at him instead.

"You _arse_ of a bloke," she hissed. "It was _you_, wasn't it?"

"Me?" he asked. His confusion seemed to annoy Ginny somehow, as she soon grabbed a Quidditch catalogue from her bed, rolled it up into a tube and used it to hit him on the arm. Hard. "Ouch!"

"Yeah, _you_," she replied in anger before hitting him again. "What did you tell her? What have you done to her now, you big moron?"

"Her? You mean Izzy," he concluded after a moment of confusion. Of course she meant Izzy. Who else would she mean? "You've talked to her."

"No, I haven't talked to her," Ginny told him. "I haven't talked to anybody. But Harry sent me a Patronus telling me that we weren't meeting in Diagon Alley this afternoon for me to meet his cousins as we'd planned – they were going to Hogsmeade instead because Izzy was with him and something had happened in Diagon Alley this morning that had upset her, so he didn't want to make her go there again. And it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together: you messing about with someone in this morning and her getting upset over something also this morning right around the place you just happen to live in. So what… did… you… do?" she asked, hitting him with the rolled-up catalogue after every word.

"Ginny, that's not helping me explain it any faster," he protested, protecting himself with his arms.

"No, but it's something I've been wanting to do for weeks," his sister informed him. "So, get talking now: what the bloody hell did you do?"

George sighed. "I messed up," he told her. "She came by the shop earlier, furious over the way I've been acting lately and, well, we had words."

In normal circumstances, she might have snapped at him and hit him again but he just sounded so damn… sorry about it. She had to tone it down a little or else it would just feel like she was beating a dead horse. "Let me guess – not the good kind."

"No – more like the awful kind. Even worse when it came out that I didn't read her letters," he admitted.

She stared at him in disbelief, all but crucifying him with her eyes. One would think that sort of glare was reserved to him confessing murder of something equally horrible, but apparently, they also applied to that very occasion. Any attempt at remaining calm was thrown to the wind as, without a warning, Ginny smacked him on the head with the catalogue, even harder than before. "You _idiot_! Do you have any idea how long she spends writing those things? Every bloody day, mind you! And you don't _read them?!_ What is wrong with you, George?!"

"Quite a lot, apparently," he said, that time not even complaining about the smack. "Look, it was stupid of me. I know that _now. _But I can't go back and change it, as much as I may want to. I messed up. I was angry and I said things I shouldn't have and I hurt her. And I'm sorry."

She nearly groaned. He just had to go and do it again… Did he really have to sound so regretful?! She'd been wanting to kick his arse for weeks and now he was just making her feel bad about it due to how pitifully sorry he was. _"_Damn you, George," Ginny said, annoyed. She put the magazine down, so mean she felt just by holding it, and crossed her arms. "So, what are you going to do now? Because you _need _to fix this," she told him with certainty.

"I _want _to fix it. But she's given up, Ginny. I'm not sure what I can do about that."

"That's ridiculous – she wouldn't just 'give up'."

"She said so," he told her.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Have you gone dumb all of a sudden? She was hurt. She hanging to you by a single thread, so odds are you being a moron made her lose hope on you ever going back to being yourself."

"Maybe I never will," he stated honestly. "I'm not even sure what being 'myself' really is these days."

"Well, regardless of what you figure out about that, you're standing here with me, telling me how badly you messed up by hurting Izzy and what an arse you've been lately. All things considered, I'd say that shows there's still hope for you."

He sighed. "So, what now?"

"_Fix it_ – and do it fast because we _will _have a problem if you ruin Christmas for my best friend. In fact," she added, "I'm not letting this go past today. You're coming with me to Hogsmeade later so you can apologise to Izzy like the decent bloke you usually are."

"Today? Don't you think it's a little too soon? I don't even know what to tell her!"

"Good – then you won't have the chance to make up any more rubbish," she told him harshly before forcing herself to go easier on him. "It's never too soon to make things right, George."

George sighed, supposing she did have a point. Putting it off was only making it worse. "Do you think I have a chance?" he asked.

Ginny shrugged. "How am I supposed to know? Izzy speaks for herself – you should know that pretty well by now."

He nodded. "Yeah," he mumbled miserably.

Sighing, his sister took some pity on him, yet another time. "Look, just talk to her. Be yourself – and I mean this version you who's sorry and can finally see what's right in front of him, not that stupid git who's been snapping at everyone lately. If she curses you at sight, then take it. If she yells, take it. If she bolts, go after her – she can't go too far, anyway. Can't apparate. In any case, make her listen. Show her it's too early to give up. And if she still doesn't change her mind… well…"

"I've made my own bed. Time to lie in it," he supplied.

Ginny nodded solemnly. "She might need time," she offered. "Anyway, provided you don't take like twenty steps back by tomorrow, there might still be hope if she tells you to get lost today. Just _don't_ go back to being a snippy moron. Because if you do, I'll be the one knocking on your door. And you'll like my yelling even less than you liked hers," she added. "It may or may not be accompanied by flying objects."

"I'll try," George offered, unable to fully commit to it at the moment. The ground under his feet was less shaky than before, having acquired his mother's forgiveness, but he still felt like he could still sink back at some point.

"You're not the only one who misses him, you know?" he unexpectedly heard Ginny saying.

It didn't take a genius to know she was referring to Fred. "I know. _Now_, I know," he said.

"Then stop feeling sorry for yourself," she demanded. "We all get it. We all know that however we feel over losing a brother, you have it far worse because he was your twin," she told him. "So, we don't nag you just for the hell of it or because we think any less of you now that Fred is gone – we nag to be sure you haven't done something stupid because you won't tell us otherwise. From the day of the battle up until a few minutes ago, you'd been like a stranger walking around in my brother's body, so forgive us for not trusting a stranger to look after someone we love."

Her words surprised him but, at the same time, they didn't. He was aware – painfully aware – of much unlike himself he'd been acting. Still, it had never occurred to him to wear that logic to justify all their 'badgering'. He'd been a stranger and no one in their right mind would be eight to just blindly trust someone they didn't know.

"And since you're apparently turning over a new leaf," Ginny went on, "you might as well do it right, so pay attention now: stop ignoring people's letters, stop trying to pretend you don't see us when we go to the shop and stop snapping at us when it doesn't work. Also, stop threatening to sack Ron whenever he checks up on you because you're not doing him any favour letting him work for you – it's the other way around. In fact, just apply that to everyone who works for you and pay them extra for the patience. And, finally, the next tear I see Mum shedding over you had better be a happy one. Are we clear?"

He nodded without hesitation. "We're clear."

His sister seemed satisfied enough with that. She looked away from him, pretending to be paying attention to the state of her nails before she spoke, trying to pass the words off as trivial. "I may have missed you occasionally," she stated.

And just like that, he knew he was forgiven. Partly, at least – Ginny being Ginny, she'd still be snippy at him as long as he didn't fix it with Izzy. But said partial forgiveness seemed to be enough that, for the first time in months, George's lips curled ever so slightly, not quite into a smile, but close enough to have meaning. "I may have missed you too," he told Ginny.

"Good," she said, finally turning to look at him. "Welcome back, Idiot."

* * *

"So, let me get this straight," Dudley Dursley said as he sat at a table in the Three Broomsticks (a magical pub) with his newly acquainted cousin talking about… well, _sports_ while his younger sister and his cousin's adopted sister ordered the drinks (beer made of _butter?!_)at the counter, "you are telling me you wizards actually have a sport played on top of _broomsticks_."

Harry nodded. "That's right."

"And that it's played with three different types of balls at once. And that in theory a game could go on indefinitely if no one caught the… what was the name again?"

"The golden snitch," Harry provided. "Which, yes, ends the game when it's caught by the seeker."

"Right… and all the while, there's a couple of balls flying around on their own trying to kill you," Dudley went on.

"Well, they're not actually trying to _kill you_," Harry pointed out. "Technically, they can when they're defective but no one's died in years or anything. A few broken bones, some head injuries… but no recent deaths."

"Sure…" his cousin mumbled. "That's insane."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "Brilliant, isn't it?"

Dudley chuckled. "Definitely. And I thought I had it rough in rugby," he commented just as Quinn came rushing towards him, reddish blond braids flying behind her.

"Dudley look!" his sister said excitedly as she shoved her mug of hot chocolate so close to his face that it looked like little more than a blur to him. The fact that it hadn't spilled all over him was nothing short of a small miracle. "It's a whirlpool!" she announced

He raised his eyebrows. "A whirl…" he stopped talking once she pulled it back just enough that his eyes could actually focus on the contents of the mug. "What in the world?" he said in disbelief. The _was _a whirlpool inside his sister's cup of hot chocolate. He took it from her and lifted it enough to check that there wasn't a drain underneath… and then felt stupid about it once he realized that a drain wouldn't allow the hot chocolate to remain in the mug. "Magic?"

Harry chuckled. "Just Madam Rosmerta's famous Swirling Hot Chocolate," he said just as Izzy sat down next to him holding her own mug of said Hot Chocolate. "Just wait until you've tried her Floating Tea."

"Does she use a spell to do this?" Quinn asked, looking at both Izzy and Harry for answer as she rescued the mug from Dudley's hold.

"Maybe. Or maybe it's a potion," Izzy told her. "No one really knows – it's a secret recipe. I tried to do it at home with a spell I found in a book and it spilled all over the place."

"Do you think she'd tell me how it's done if I come to work here when I'm all grown up?" Quinn asked.

Dudley chuckled. "What? Now you want to work at a magical pub?" he asked. It was only her forth potential future profession that day – so far, she'd wanted to be an Auror, upon hearing Harry explain what he was training to be in the future, a Knight-Bus Conductor when they'd used it to travel from London to the Highlands and a Wandmaker once they'd passed Hogsmeade's branch of Ollivander's. He was sure by the end of the day she'd have found at least three more things she wanted to grow up to be. Hopefully not a Quidditch Player, he thought – the thought of his tiny, harmless sister being chased around by missile-like balls didn't quite agree with him…

"Hey, where are our butterbeers?" Harry asked Izzy. "I thought you told us to find a seat while you and Quinn fetched the drinks because you wanted to show her that singing Christmas Tree on the counter."

"Rosmerta is bringing them in a bit," she said. "Once she heard they were for you, she said you were getting nothing less than the 'good stuff', whatever it is, and disappeared into the basement fetch it. The other waitress said it might take a while but that it was worth it."

Harry sighed at that – ever since the end of the war, it seemed like everywhere he went where he wasn't mobbed, people seemed to go beyond themselves to treat him like royalty instead, no matter how much he insisted that he didn't need to be repaid for 'saving the world'. Suffice to say, nobody listened. So, resigned, he turned to Dudley instead. "Hey, do you want to drop by the Quidditch Supplies Shop while we wait? It's just next door and they have this moving diorama of a Quidditch game over there – it's not the real thing but it'd still give you a good visual of what the game is like."

His cousin nodded. "That sounds good," Dudley said. "Though Quinn…"

"I could keep an eye on her," Izzy offered. "Ginny's supposed to be meeting us here soon anyway, isn't she?" she asked, turning to Harry.

He nodded. "She said she'd be here at about four."

"Yeah, we can keep her entertained. I mean, unless she wants to go as well," Izzy said.

All three of them looked at the little girl at the same time, expecting her to say something. However, she didn't seem to be paying them the least bit of attention, her eyes fully fixated on a group of dwarves dressed up as Christmas Elves that seemed to be getting ready to start singing Christmas Carols at a corner of the pub.

"Quinn?" Dudley called

"Hmm," she mumbled distractedly.

"Harry and I were going out for a bit. Do you want to go? It's just around the corner," her brother asked. "You can stay with Izzy if you want."

"'kay," she absently replied.

Dudley chuckled before turning to Harry. "Let's go – it's no use trying to get her to move when she's like this," he said before turning to Izzy and thanking her for the offer to look after his sister. They were gone seconds later, leaving Izzy alone with Quinn.

She had to give it to Harry, Izzy thought. It _had _been a good idea to spend the day with him and his cousins. Not only had she gotten a chance to escape the dozens of questions her mother had been bound to ask but also, just like he'd said, it was impossible to be miserable around Quinn – there was something about her (maybe all that childhood wonder that led her to fire up a hundred questions a minute) that just made people want to smile until their face hurt every once in a while. To be fair, Izzy hadn't been all smiles that day but, considering the blow from that morning's row with George, the fact that she wasn't frowning either was good enough of an achievement.

She knew why Harry had brought them to Hogsmeade rather than Diagon Alley, which would be the most obvious choice when one wanted to introduce somebody to an entirely wizard location – he'd been trying to keep her away from the joke shop. Of course, she knew that probably hadn't been an entirely selfless choice – it was easier for Harry to get around in Hogsmeade without being mobbed than in Diagon Alley. Maybe it was because the locals had gotten used to having him around from all those weekends he'd spent there during his Hogwarts years. Sure, they were extra-nice to him, which Harry found rather disconcerting, but at least they didn't go completely bonkers like those nutters in London. And, of course, there was the fact that Hogwarts was just around the corner, which, of course, had contributed a lot to Quinn's delight.

Selfless or not, she'd be eternally thankful to him. All day, she'd mostly aimed to keep all thoughts of George out of her mind and, for the time being, the distance seemed to be a contributing factor for her success. But then, there would come moments as that one, when Quinn's attention was elsewhere and no one was talking about something else – then, those unwelcome thoughts of George would slip through the cracks and, once again, fill her with doubt and disappointment. Out of sight, out of mind could only do so much, it appeared.

"Quinn," Izzy spoke, unable to remain quiet with her unpleasant thoughts any longer, "aren't you going to drink that?" she asked, nodding at the mug.

Quinn looked away from the Dwarves, who were already singing away, and back at it. "I don't want to ruin the whirlpool – it's so pretty," she said.

"Oh, it's okay," Izzy told her. "It won't vanish until the cup is empty." To prove her point, she took her sip from her own cup and then showed it to her, the whirlpool a little further down but still firmly in place. "See? Besides, when it's empty, we can always order another one. And trust me – it tastes even better than it looks."

The little girl smiled and decided to test that theory herself. "It does!" she said in amazement, taking another sip just after she said so.

Izzy's lips curled a little. "So, how have you liked your day so far?"

The little girl shot her a big smile. "It's the best day! I wish I could be around magic every day…"

"But then it wouldn't be so special, would it?" Izzy replied.

Quinn frowned. "It's magic – how can it ever stop being special?"

Izzy was thoughtful for a moment. When one was born around magic, raised around magic and lived every day surrounded by it from dawn to dusk, it was easy to take it by granted, to forget that being magical wasn't the rule but the exception. But for Quinn, who might also be a witch but still lived in the Muggle world, it was all out of the ordinary. Everything magic was amazing to Quinn the same way everything Muggle was amazing to Izzy. "Actually, I think you might just have point there," she told Quinn.

The little girl smiled, satisfied, and took a sip from her hot chocolate.

"You know, if you want to after we leave here we can go through the shops outside to try and find something special for you to take home," Izzy suggested.

Quinn's face fell and she immediately shook her head. "Mum can't see me with anything magic," she said. "She doesn't know we're here. Dudley had to lie to her and say he was taking me to Legoland. She wouldn't have let me come if she knew we were going to see Harry – that's why we had to take the train to London."

Izzy frowned. She knew, from what she'd heard from her parents (particularly her dad, who was quite outspoken about it) that Quinn's mother was a bit of a cold fish. But having a problem with Harry to the point that she didn't want her daughter near him? That was just nuts. "What's she got against Harry? He's a nice guy – saved the world and everything. Why would she have a problem with you seeing him?"

Quinn shrugged. "She just doesn't like him 'cause he's magic. She doesn't really like people who are magic. Dudley says she's silly," the little girl told her.

"Dudley's right about that," Izzy pointed out, frowning. What shocked her the most in Quinn's words was how casually she'd pointed out her mother didn't like magical people in general when Quinn herself was magical. "Anyway," she said, deciding not to press the matter in order not to upset the little girl, "tell me about that Legoland you mentioned before. Is if an amusement park? I used to go to one of those when I was little."

The younger girl immediately nodded in excitement. "It is! Do you have amusement parks here in the magic world too? Do they have rides that can make you fly in them? And can you make yourself taller so that you can go on all the rides you want? They didn't let me go on the rollercoaster the other day because I was too little…"

"They never let me go on those at first either," Izzy told her. "But no, we don't really have special amusement parks in the 'magic world' – I used to go to a Muggle one. My gran, Lulu, she's a bit like you. I mean, she did have a magical Mum but she died when she was little, so Lulu grew up in the Muggle world because her Dad wasn't magical. She really likes Muggle things, even today, so nearly every year she got us tickets to an amusement park. We used to go around Christmas: Lulu, my mum, Harry and I. It was always really fun."

Despite the story, Quinn frowned. "What about your Dad? Your Dad is Mr Sirius, isn't he? Harry said so."

Izzy nodded. "He is. But he wasn't around back then. Not because he _wanted_ to be away," she quickly added. "There was a bad man who did some very bad things and blamed them on my dad and, because of that, they sent him away."

"Was it the bad man Harry had to fight?" Quinn asked.

Izzy shook her head. "No. It was one of his friends, though. He's gone now too and Dad is free. Everything was okay in the end."

Quinn still didn't look satisfied. "But Mr Sirius is nice. They shouldn't have put him away. Don't they know he wouldn't do bad things?"

The older girl sighed. "People can be very wrong sometimes, Quinn. They can expect all sorts of wrong things from other people." And, just like that, her mind drifted back to that morning's row. She felt like groaning.

"But they know the truth now, don't they? And they apologized for being wrong, didn't they? If they didn't, they should."

"Don't worry – they did," Izzy assured her.

"Good. I like Mr Sirius," Quinn declared. "He was good to me. He's the one who told me I was a witch." And, as she said so, she smiled.

"I know – he told me so."

"He did?" the little girl asked, glad he'd spoken about her. "Is he a good dad?"

Izzy found herself smiling. "He's the best dad," she declared. Truth to be told, he had his flaws, as all Dads, even the best ones, ought to have. Of course, she wasn't about to list them to a little girl who, from what she'd heard, had two of the most idiotic human beings in the world for parents.

"What does he do? Is he an auror like Harry wants to be?"

"No. He was a curse-breaker before I was born, or so I'm told. Never saw him doing any sort of fancy curse-breaking, really. Now he's a teacher at Hogwarts like my mum. She teaches History of Magic and he's the flying instructor. He referees Quidditch games and teaches the first years how to fly."

"Will they teach me?"

"Probably. Still a few years until it's your turn to go to Hogwarts, though."

Quinn nodded, pouting. "Four of them. It's _ages_," she said.

"I know – it seems like it's never going to come," Izzy agreed. "But it does and it's worth it. Next thing you know, you'll be catching the Hogwarts Express and getting sorted. Then you'll be sitting at your house table getting to know all sorts of new friends and chatting with your house ghost…"

Quinn's eyes widened. "_Ghost_?" she asked sharply, alarmed. "Ghosts are real?!"

"Harry didn't tell you about the ghosts?" she asked.

The little girl shook her head and, despite being surprised, Izzy couldn't really blame her brother for having missed that detail. There was so much to be said about Hogwarts that one would likely need a small mountain of cue cards to remember every single thing…

"Well, the good news is that you don't need to worry because they're nice," Izzy assured her. "Some can be a bit odd because, well, they've been dead for centuries. But they look like normal people… except they're see-through and can float through walls." And some have partially-severed heads, she added in her mind, thinking of good old Nearly-Headless Nick. Of course, she was probably going to leave that part for later – the fact that ghosts were real might just be overwhelming enough for Quinn that day.

"Are there many of them?" the little girl asked.

"Not many. Not all people become ghosts – very few do, actually. Hogwarts has a couple dozen at the most."

"And they're all good to living people? Like Casper from the telly? He's a nice ghost – his uncles are the nasty ones," she explained

"Most of them are."

"Most of them?" Quinn asked, not quite satisfied about the 'most' part.

"There can't be a rule without an exception, can there?" Izzy pointed out. "In any case, even the least nice ones are harmless… well, maybe not Peeves but, technically, he's a Poltergeist, not a ghost. Still, the worst he'll do is throw a handful of dungbombs at you when he's feeling particularly mischievous – the Bloody Baron usually gets him in line after a few minutes of fun."

"What about the other evil ones?" Quinn asked.

"I wouldn't say they were _evil_. They're more like… annoying. Honestly, aside from Peeves and the Bloody Baron, who's just a bit creepy, only a couple of others come to mind: there's this one who haunts the first-floor girls' bathroom and spends her whole time flooding it and moaning about death and then another who's a teacher. A nightmare, that one – again, not so much in an _evil _sort of way, or so I'm told. But, Merlin, I was never as glad for having dropped a subject as I was when I found out he was back."

Quinn seemed ready to fire up more questions but, before she had a chance, Ginny showed up by their table.

"Hey," the redhead greeted them.

"Hi," Izzy replied. "You're here just in time. Quinn," she said, turning to the little girl, "this is Ginny. She's my best friend and Harry's girlfriend. He told you about her, didn't he?" she asked, receiving a nod in return before looking back at Ginny. "Well, this is Quinn. She probably wants me to point out that it's not Quinn as in 'the Queen'. Just Quinn."

"It's spelled differently," the little girl supplied.

"I imagined so," Ginny said. "Well, it's nice to meet you, Quinn. Harry's told me a lot about you."

Quinn was glad to hear it. Still, she didn't allow herself to show it at first. "Dudley used to have a girlfriend. She dumped him for Piers Polkiss when his parents bought a pool and made him really sad. Are you going to dump Harry for his best friend if his parents get a pool?"

"Well, considering Harry's best friend is my brother and that I doubt our parents would ever consider getting a pool, probably not," Ginny easily assured her.

Quinn smiled. "Good," she said, clearly stamping the redhead with her seal of approval. "Your hair is _really _red. Aunt Lily had really red hair too – I saw it in a picture."

"I know. Potters do seem to have a type, don't they?" Ginny pointed out. "But yours is a bit red too, isn't it? Reddish blond."

The little girl smiled and nodded. "Strawberry blond – that's what Mum calls it. I think it's stupid – strawberries are _really_ red. "

Ginny chuckled. "Good point."

"Sit down. I was just telling Quinn about Hogwarts," Izzy told her friend.

"Actually, I kind of needed a word with you in private before," Ginny informed her before turning to Quinn. "It'll just be a minute or two. Then I'll come back and tell you all there is to know about secret passages."

"Okay," Quinn said, more than happy with the arrangement.

"Good," the redhead said before gesturing her friend to follow her.

Izzy did so, rather intrigued. What did Ginny want to talk about? Could she know something had happened? Was it showing on her face or something? Up until then, she'd been sure she'd managed to hide any sign of upset over that morning's events pretty well. Then again, Ginny wasn't easily fooled… "Look, Ginny," she started once her friend stopped and the two of them were standing right by the pub's door, "whatever it is you think is going on, I assure you that I'm fi…"

"Oh, don't bother.I already know what's gone on with George," the redhead declared to her surprise.

"What? But… how? Did Harry…?"

Ginny shook her head immediately. "I've barely talked to Harry today and, anyway, it doesn't matter where I learned it from. I just wanted to tell you that you should go outside."

"Outside? What, outside the pub?" she asked.

Ginny nodded.

"Why should I go outside the pub? It's freezing out there."

The redhead rolled her eyes. "Oh, please – it's not that bad. Just cast a warming charm on your coat and you'll be fine," she told her.

"But Quinn is here," she said, gesturing to the little girl sitting at the table. "I'm supposed to look after her until Harry and Dudley come back."

"I'll take care of Quinn," Ginny promised. "Just do what I'm telling you."

"But why?"

"_Because I'm telling you to," _Ginny hissed under her breath. "Look, you _want _to go outside."

"I do?"

"You definitely do," she assured her before sighing. "Izzy, just trust me on this – you want to go outside. Have I ever fooled you?"

Izzy eyed her in suspicion for several seconds before letting out a sigh. "Alright. But if I don't like whatever you want me out there for, I'm coming right back."

"Fine. Just… forget he's a git for a few minutes and give him a chance," her friend told her.

"What?" Izzy asked, confused at the mention of 'him'.

But Ginny was already herding her towards the pubs doors and fetching a coat she recognized as hers from the hanger. "You know, there's this little square right past the Train Station that makes a great place to talk in private," the redhead stated as she nearly forced Izzy to put the coat on.

"Why are you telling me that?" Izzy asked, suspicious.

"You're welcome," Ginny simply replied, before opening the pub's door and unceremoniously pushing her out as she was starting to turn, firmly closing the door once her friend was out of its path.

Standing lividly outside, Izzy glared at her friend through the little window on the door for a moment before turning around, trying to figure out what on Earth Ginny wanted her out so much for. Of course, the act of turning around on itself gave her the answer – it appeared George had been standing right behind her. She froze, and certainly not because of the frosty temperature.

"Hi," he said awkwardly. She didn't respond – she just stood there, looking at him with a guarded expression on her face. It was the fact that he knew he'd brought that on himself that made it hurt all the most. "Do you think we… can we talk?" he asked tentatively.

She hesitated again and he felt his heart sink. "Why?" she finally asked. "Haven't we said enough already?"

"Only enough of all the wrong things," he told her. "I don't want to fight or yell or… anything. Just talk… actually talk. Not like before. I promise. So, can we?"

She spent another twenty seconds looking at him with silence and suspicion. And when the silence broke, it was him speaking again.

"Please," he said. "I am begging here."

He was – she could hear it in his voice. And Merlin helped her if she didn't sense a change in him: in his tone, in his eyes, in… basically everything about him. "Okay," she eventually gave in. "We can talk. Not here, though."

"Where, then?"

"The square by the train station," she said, inwardly cursing at Ginny for having ambushed her like that.

He nodded. "Lead the way," he told her.

She did, mostly for the fact that walking in front of him likely wouldn't allow him to see just how nervous she was. Honestly, she had no idea how that conversation was going to end up. He seemed a bit… different. But still, the memory of that morning was too fresh for her to shake off the feeling that everything was probably going to end up badly.

They took a right at the end of Hogsmeade's High Street, stepping into a path covered with snow that led to the square Ginny had indicated. It wasn't too full – there were just a couple of kids there, busy building a snowman, as an old couple who seemed to be their grandparents watched closely. To warrant them so privacy, Izzy headed straight to the farthest bench from them. It was covered with snow, as all others, and she had to use her wand to banish it away so their clothes wouldn't get wet.

She turned around in order to sit down, half-expecting him to have vanished somewhere along the way there. However, she soon was greeted with the sight of him behind her like before – she wasn't sure if she was relieved or disappointed about it. It seemed the more she saw of him, the least she wanted to actually give up as she'd told him she would… and she wasn't quite sure yet if not giving up was the right choice. Inwardly, she cursed at Harry for his earlier words – it seemed that just by pointing out how bad she was at giving him, he'd basically doomed her to fail at it.

When George sat down by her side and seemed about to talk, she pulled her feet up to rest on the edge of the seat so she could wrap her arms around her legs in a move far more defensive than she'd planned it to be – clearly, she was already bracing herself for the blow she was sure to be right on the horizon.

"So…" he started.

"Do you hate me?" she asked all of a sudden, interrupting him. She wasn't sure what had caused her to just blurt the question so suddenly. At that moment, she'd just known that she had to know and get it over with. Lulu had been right the previous day: the wandering was torture and it couldn't go on forever. "Is that it? Because if it is, just say it and be done. I just need to hear it once and then I'm out. Really out. So, do you hate me for the things I said to you that day at the battle? Do you…" she paused, hesitating at voicing the second question. That was the one question she'd feared the most, the one question she'd never voiced out loud and the one she couldn't stand to think of for too long without feeling herself going insane. It was unthinkable, yet it needed an answer. Desperately. Now that she had the guts to ask the first, she couldn't leave the second unanswered. "Do you blame me? Because I lived and Fred didn't?"

George frowned, completely caught by surprise. "What?! What are you on about? Why would I ever hate you for telling me what I already knew? Why would I ever blame you for living? You didn't kill him; it wasn't any situation when one of you dying was up for pick and choosing. You didn't live _instead _of him. It was a battle – you lived, he didn't. No correlation between that – so why on Earth would I hate you for it?"

"'_Fred is dead and you're still here. And I don't want you here'_," she quoted him, word by word. "That's what you said to me that day, George. During the battle."

"Oh, Merlin," he mumbled, just realizing what she'd gathered from it. "I didn't mean it like that – I'd never… Merlin, Fred had just died. He'd just died and you were sitting there with me on a mission to save me from myself! It pissed me off!"

"Pissed you off?" she asked in disbelief.

He sighed, trying to think of how to put it into the right word. "I… I'll never hold it against you that you said those things… about Fred being gone. I won't. But it hurt – it felt like being bathed in acid. Not because you said it… because it was true. And then I was there, pretty much raw, and you were there too and it made me so… angry that you were being stupid enough to put yourself in line to be the next dead person I'd have to mourn instead of going home, where you should have been in the first place. I didn't want you there because I wanted you safe, not because I wanted you dead instead of him, for Merlin's sake!"

She gaped at him for what had to be at least twenty seconds. "Then why have you been avoiding me? Why wouldn't you even look at me? Why would you just ignore my letters?"

"Because I'm an arse," he told her without hesitation. "Because I've been too involved in my own grief to even stop to think that the people around me are grieving too or that I'm hurting them or that not everyone's mission is to patronise me. And because just hearing from you makes me happy and I couldn't stand being happy when I knew Fred will never get the chance to have _his_ happy ending." He paused and sighed. "I couldn't hate you even if I tried."

She eyed him in surprise for a moment, unsure where to even start with the process of registering his words. He'd been trying to protect her, even when the wound of Fred's death was so fresh that all he could do was scream at her to leave; she made him happy and he'd been so full of grief lately that happiness had been too unbearable an option without Fred around to share it; and, finally, he didn't hate her – couldn't hate her.

"Please say something," she heard him saying.

"I will," she mumbled. "I'm just… processing it all."

She didn't look at him but practically felt him nod. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I made you think I blamed you for months," she heard him saying. "I am so very sorry I don't think the word 'sorry' really cuts it. And the things I said today, the way I acted for the past few months… you didn't deserve it. No one did, Isabelle."

Izzy bit her lip, looking down. Hearing him say her name – her full name in that way only he did, not full of bitterness or bite like morning, just… him – made something warm up within her, more than his general change of tone since their past conversation ever had. He almost sounded like the George she knew. The George she knew and loved. And she really couldn't help throwing him a bone for it. "I suppose I looking for blood either. I just… after the way you acted the other day and I saw just how miserable you were making your mother, I couldn't stand it quietly anymore."

George looked down. "Don't even try, Isabelle. You were right by coming over and yelling at me. It was time someone told me those things – I needed to hear them," he told her.

She didn't respond to that, instead just waiting for him to continue, which he did, after a few seconds.

"I went home today," he said. "To the Burrow, I mean. Stayed for lunch with Mum, Dad and Ginny. Asked Mum to save me a seat for Christmas." When she gave him an incredulous look, he sighed. "You didn't think I would," he guessed.

"You made your thoughts on Christmas pretty clear this morning," she stated. "What changed between then and now?"

"I was wrong. I was so wrong about you that I actually hurt you. And when I saw it happening something just… clicked. I guess it made me wonder just how many things I was wrong about. And it made me see what I was actually doing – I was hurting who… cared about me. And Merlin help me if that wasn't one of the few things Fred would ever hate me for if he was around to do it."

She gave him a look of surprise. "Fred would never hate you," she said without a shadow of a doubt. She might as well be saying the sky was blue – Fred hating George or vice-versa would be just as unnatural as… the sun setting east or something.

"Maybe not," George admitted. "But he'd curse the living daylights out of me if he saw me being half as much of a jerk as I've been lately."

Feeling more relaxed, she let go of the sort of defensive position she'd been holding, letting her feet fall back down to the floor and sitting properly on the bench. "If the roles were reversed, I'm sure he wouldn't have dealt with grief much better than you."

George didn't comment on that, just sighing instead. "We'd made a pact, you know?" he told her after a few seconds. "When things started to get really bad… We made a pact that if one of us… you know… well, the other would just… go on living for both of us. No angst just… celebrating life and all that crap. It sounded like a good enough plan. Very us and all."

"Good plan my arse," she told him disbelief. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

George bit his lip for a second. "In hindsight, it does sound a bit… unrealistic."

"It sounds mad. Period. And Fred most likely wouldn't have done any better at holding up his end of the bargain either," she stated firmly. "I won't even… presume knowing what losing him has felt like for you. I won't. But I know what thinking Harry was dead felt like to me – for ten whole minutes, everyone in that battle, including me, believed he was gone and it felt… so much worse than anything I'd ever felt before or ever thought I might feel in my life. And, trust me, no stupid pact would have made me turn that feeling off if Harry had been really dead, no matter how 'me' it was. It doesn't work that way. People need to grieve, each their own way."

"Mine not being the best of ways," George admitted.

Izzy didn't respond to that, instead looking down at her hands.

"I came here ready to beg, you know?"

She looked at him, eyebrows raised. "What for?"

"For you not to give up me," he specified. "You said you were going to before. And I guess I didn't realize how much I needed you until I heard you say I might just lose you for good." He sighed. "I hope I'm not too late now."

She sighed. "Well, if Harry's to be believed, you never really will be," she said, causing George to give her a look of confusion.

"Harry?"

She nodded. "He was kind enough to point out to me my long history of not being very good at sticking to my plans when it comes to giving up on things," she explained. "I meant it when I said it, though," she quickly added. She needed him to see – to understand – just how deeply he'd hurt her. Not because she wanted to punish him – because she wanted him never to do it again. Never to shut her out, never to stop being himself again. "I did want to give up on you. For a second there, I really did. Do you have any idea what it's like to stand in front of someone you know and feel like you're talking to a complete stranger? I thought you were gone, George. For good."

"Maybe I _am _gone," he admitted. "It's only fair I warn you. I don't know if I can really go back to being that George you knew before, Isabelle. Not without Fred. It feels… it feels like part of me went with him, you know? And I have no idea how I'm supposed to go on with what's left."

It hurt her to see that he could still sound so broken. So lost. "You're not gone, George. I thought you might be – this morning I was sure you were but now… now I can tell that I was wrong. You weren't gone, you were just… out."

George seemed intrigued. "Out?"

She sighed. "Drifting, ghosting, going through the motions… call it what you want. You were here but you weren't. Not since the battle. Not until today. Maybe you feel battered, maybe you feel broken, maybe you feel incomplete… but this is you. This is the person I spent hours writing to every night for months last year. This is a George Weasley I recognize. And this is who we're here to help – me and everyone who cares about you –, not patronize or pity. You just have to let us, even if it's just by not keeping us at arm's length."

George sighed. "I'm trying. I really am. But I've _just_ started trying and… well, I don't know how it will go from here. It's easy not to try, you know? Maybe tomorrow or the day after, I'll wake up and think it's not worth the trouble. And maybe later I'll realize again that it is. Because trying… trying can make it all feel much lighter," he said.

"Well, if you give people the chance, we can remind you of that when you need it," she told him. "Make it easier. Even if we have to hex you for that purpose."

He chuckled a little. "I suppose if it's necessary, I'd have to forgive you for that," he offered. "So, I take it this means you're not giving up," he tentatively said.

She sighed. "Not just yet," she admitted.

It was with immense relief that he heard those words. It occurred to him that he should have reached out for her earlier. He'd nearly forgotten how right just talking to Isabelle Black felt. It wasn't the same as talking to Fred, who'd been his confidant and fellow plotter since the cradle. Still… talking to her made him feel like himself again, for the first time in a long period of time.

"I should still be very angry at you, though," Izzy informed him. "I can't believe you threw my letters away!" she nearly shouted. Maybe she was willing to give him another chance but, Merlin, did it still sting her to think of all those hours thinking of what to write to him thrown at the wind.

"But I didn't," he told her truthfully. "I didn't read them but I kept them all."

Izzy looked at him in surprise. "Oh," she mumbled. "But why? Why would you keep them if you weren't going to read them?"

"I dunno… I… I just couldn't actually throw them out," he said. "I guess maybe I always did plan to read them sometime," he supposed. "Which I did, this morning. Well, most of them, at least."

"And…" she prompted.

"And, three letters in, I concluded that I was an even bigger arse than I thought because they were nothing like I'd imagined. And then at some point I skipped to the last ones, hoping to find one calling me all those things I was thinking because I was pretty sure that would make me feel a bit better, only… there wasn't one. Why wasn't there one? You wrote me dozens of letters and I didn't answer a single one. Why didn't you write back telling me off or… sent me a howler? I deserved a howler… hell, I deserved a letter cursed with a boil-producing hex! Why didn't you do it?"

"Because you were my friend. And because I thought you were actually reading those letters. I didn't _need_ a reply, as much as I'd like to have gotten one – I just needed to think that those little bits of… normalcy I was trying to give you were making you a little bit better every time you got them. Of course, if I'd known those damn letters were being locked away in a drawer or a box or wherever you kept them, I'd have started sending you howlers every day. Cursed howlers with far more than boil-producing hexes on them," she assured him.

He sighed, looking down. He was the biggest arse in the history of the world. He deserved to be hexed for it. Repeatedly. "Would a year's worth of owls saying how sorry I am make up for even a little bit of it?"

"No," he heard her saying. His heart sunk immediately – he really had screwed it up. So, _so_ badly. _You idiotic little jer_… "I don't want to wait that long."

He turned to her with a surprised look on his face. What was she saying? Wait for what? "What else can I do, then?" he found himself asking.

Izzy just regarded him for a second before saying anything. "Promise you won't push me away like this again," she told him. "When you feel like you're sinking in again, talk to me instead of taking it out on everyone. Or don't talk to me and talk to someone else. Just don't keep it in. It only hurts you. You and everyone who gives a crap about you, myself included," she added.

He nodded without hesitation. "I promise. I do, Isabelle."

"Good," she said. "Because I really missed you… talking to you… you know what I mean."

He felt his lips curling just a little at that admission. "Yeah. I know what you mean. And, for what's worth, I missed you too, Isabelle. Even if I didn't realize how much until today."

Izzy's only response was a smile that George didn't miss from the corner of his eye.

They sat there in silence for several minutes, just enjoying each other's company, as well as the feeling of knowing things might just turn out alright between them, after all.

Around them, the square was quiet, not quite as empty as it had been when they'd arrived but still comfortably private. It was starting to get colder and, soon enough, little flurries of snow started to blow with the wind – not many but enough to make Izzy feel – _actually _feel, for the first time that year – that Christmas was nearing. It wasn't that she hadn't seen snow before that year (there was plenty of that right around the corner at Hogwarts) but there had always been something missing that wouldn't allow her to fully feel the holiday spirit. She supposed it must've been the bloke who just happened to be sitting right next to her at that moment.

"George?" she said, turning to face him. He seemed to be looking up, watching the snow fall down from the clouds with an arm above his head to keep it out of his face

"Yeah," he replied, turning to her.

"Merry Christmas," she told him softly.

He raised his eyebrows. "It's not Christmas yet," he pointed out.

She shrugged. "Close enough."

**A/N: And so the long-awaited amends made it here! Still a long way from here, but I hope you liked it anyway. Feedback is welcome, as always. Review!**


	5. Hope

**A/N: Here is another chapter - Christmas themed. *sigh* One day I'll manage to match the theme to the actual date...**

**24 December 1998**

From the moment he'd realized his wrongs, George Weasley had done nothing more than trying to make up for them.

It hadn't been very long since his epiphany, however, so far, things were going well: his mother had forgiven him, his sister had forgiven him (after a few bouts of aggression) and, for some small miracle, Isabelle had also forgiven him. He hadn't seen much of anyone else he was supposed to apologize to after that: his mother had demanded he go back to the Burrow for dinner, which he did, however every one of his brothers seemed to be gone from it, including Ron, who still resided at the Burrow. Although he suspected that might reflect some reluctance on their part to accept he was so suddenly back, his parents and even Ginny (who wasn't one for giving false assurances) assured him they only weren't there because Ron had had previous plans and his mother hadn't been able to get a hold of any of them all day to inform them of his return.

Still, despite that possible hiccup, that night, for the first time in months, George had gone to bed feeling hope and relief…

… only to wake up on the following morning feeling a whole other sort of feeling: annoyance. Not the general sort of annoyance and bitchyness he'd been exhaling for months. No… it was a more particular sort of annoyance, directed specifically at the fact that he was starting to regret one thing he'd done the previous day: removing those silencing charms keeping any sound from the rest of the flat from entering his room.

He'd thought it a symbolic move when he'd done it: a way to force himself to accept that, no, he would never be bothered again by the sounds of Fred humping Angie next door. And, also, a way to prevent ever making Isabelle having to nearly bang her hands bloody on his door again. As such: a symbolic move.

However, when he'd decided to do that, he hadn't expected to be woken up at six in the bloody morning the following day by _more incessant banging on his door_…

For a moment, he lay there wondering if he was dreaming that, because what on earth would anyone want from him at six in the morning on Christmas Eve? He wondered if it was Izzy again, maybe having woken up to a changed mind and wanting to withdraw the previous day's forgiveness… No, that didn't sound like her. At least he hoped it didn't sound like her…

Another knock urged him to get up at once, if not for anything else, not to increase Izzy's wrath in case it was her again for some reason.

It wasn't.

When he opened the door, he couldn't help being confused at seeing his brothers standing at the door. All four of them. It had to be some kind of weird dream, right? Because why on Earth would his brothers be knocking on his door at _six in the morning? _But then again, it wouldn't be a dream – if it was, Fred would be standing there as well.

"Have I got it wrong or is it really _six in the morning_?" he asked them.

All four faces looked at him blankly for about five seconds before Percy, prepared as ever, checked his watch and nodded. "It's six in the morning," he confirmed.

The admission alone made George feel like just punching him but he quickly talked himself out of it, reminding himself he was turning over a new leaf, which probably wouldn't go too well with punching his brother for telling him what time it was, even if it was Percy. "Okay. Well, since that part is settled, here goes the next one: what in the name of Merlin's soggy underpants are you doing knocking on my door at _six in the morning_?" He paused for a second, as a thought crossed his mind. "Wait, did something bad happen?"

"Not recently," Bill said shortly. "We wanted to make sure we caught you before you got busy with the shop."

"And you couldn't have aimed to… I dunno, any time _after dawn_? Because I'm sure Ron knows the shop doesn't open until half past eight. He does work here, after all."

"It's the busiest day of the year – as if you wouldn't be down there at least an hour early stocking up," Ron replied.

"Which would give me an extra hour of sleep I would have done very well with," George pointed out. "Merlin, what time did you people get up to be standing there looking all serious and awake?"

"Too early," Charlie mumbled, earning himself an elbow on the ribs from Bill.

"It doesn't matter," Bill stated. "This talk has been long overdue and we're not putting it off any longer. Can we come in?"

George huffed. "If I say 'no' will you go away and come back at a decent hour?"

His brothers didn't reply and George didn't really need them to – their faces said it all well enough.

"Fine," he mumbled, moving out of the way. "Make yourselves at home."

They did. Charlie quickly made a dash for the comfiest-looking armchair in the sitting area and looked like he might just take a nap on it. At the same time, Percy and Ron took a seat on the loveseat while Bill grabbed a chair from the kitchen for himself, despite the fact there was yet another armchair available for him. Something about that gesture made George wonder if that wasn't one of those conversations that started with the words 'have a seat'.

And, possibly as a joke from the universe itself, soon enough Bill himself was uttering the dreaded words. "Have a seat, George."

Barely a word had been said so far and George was already sure he wasn't going to like that conversation. At all. Still, faithful to his decision to distance himself from the jerk he'd been lately, he gave them a chance and took said seat. Once he did, all eyes were on him. "Are you going to say something or will you just sit there staring at me?" he asked, just wanting to get it over with.

They all looked at each other like they weren't sure how to start and, strangely enough, Percy was the first one to speak.

"We're concerned about the way you've been behaving lately," his said, eloquent as ever. "You've been acting… belligerent and very much unlike yourself and we just don't feel like…"

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Perce," Charlie shouted interrupting his brother and his fancy, painfully long wording. "What he's trying to say is that you've been a real tosser lately and we're done letting you get away with it," he simplified it. The sooner they were done, the sooner he could go back to bed.

George raised his eyebrows. "Okay…" he mumbled. He was starting to get a feeling they might be a bit behind in the news. "Just out of curiosity, when was the last time any of you…?"

"Don't even start, George," Bill warned him. "Fred might not have been our twin but he was still our brother. Just because we haven't experienced exactly what you're feeling for losing him, it doesn't mean we don't imagine what it must be like. Now, do yourself a favour and shut the hell up while we say what we have to say. You can have your word afterwards."

"And keep in mind there's such a thing as silencing charms in case you don't comply," Charlie pointed out

Again, George's eyebrows went even further up, mostly because he'd actually just intended to ask when it had been the last time any of them had talked to their mother, not give them some sort of guilt trip. "Alright," he mumbled. By then, he was about 90% sure they had no idea of what had happened the previous day, but he bloody well wasn't about to risk getting himself silenced and maybe even wrapped in a full body-bind just for the sake of telling them about it. Besides, it seemed like saying what they had to say was kind of important to them and he was getting a bit curious about what, in fact, they had to say. At that point, he was fairly sure that going back to bed wasn't going to warrant him any more sleep than he'd already had. "Get on with it," he urged them.

Bill seemed happy enough with that. "As you may have noticed (or should have noticed), we've been giving you time and space ever since Fred… passed. We thought it was what you needed and that it would help you heal but it's starting to get clear that it's not working."

"Actually, it's not just… not working_. _It's making you _worse_," Ron said, speaking for the first time as he eyed him in a hostile manner. He'd quit hiding his distaste for the way George was acting three days before, when his brother had told him he wasn't even going home for Christmas, regardless of how it affected his own family.

Percy nodded. "And now you're breaking Mum's heart too," he pointed out, warranting himself a look from George that silently pointed out the irony of the pot calling the kettle black. The older boy seemed to recognise it and accepted it with a sigh. "I know what I've done. Trust me, I know it very well, and that's exactly why you should listen to me when I tell you to stop pushing us all away, especially Mum. It won't do you any good. Most of all now, at Christmas."

"Which is why we have decided that, since leaving you alone wasn't helping, we're going for the very opposite now," Bill declared.

"Yeah, so you're coming home later today for Christmas either you want it or not," Charlie stated, casually twirling his wand around his fingers, as if to remind him how many different spells there were that could help them achieve that purpose.

"And you're going to be civil to Mum or just keep your mouth shut, even if we have to gag you," Ron informed him.

George looked at the four of them in disbelief. They'd lost their marbled – they very clearly had. What good would possibly do having him tied up and gagged at the table for Christmas dinner? If anything, it would upset his mother further… not that it really mattered, George told himself, because he _was _going to Christmas dinner and he most definitely wasn't going to need ropes or a gag to be civil over there. They'd know that already if they'd let him tell them.

"I know this may seem harsh," Percy stated in a very euphemistic fashion. "But we're not doing this to punish you. We just think that, if leaving you alone didn't work, then maybe spending time with the family will have better results. And if that has to be against your will at first, then so be it."

"Now, do you have something to say?" Bill asked, looking fairly satisfied about what had been said.

"I have _several _things to say," George pointed out.

"Well, spill it, then," Ron mumbled.

George did. "For starters, I have a question: why on Earth would you possibly tell me all that?"

Charlie frowned. "You're joking, right? Isn't it obvious?"

"No. I'm not talking about you pointing out what a git I've been – I'm referring to you completely spilling the beans about that plan of yours to kidnap me this evening. I mean, do you realize that dinnertime is over half a day away? If I wanted to, now that you've given me a heads up I could just head to the ministry, get myself an International Portkey to Burundi and make your plans completely crash and burn. Wouldn't it just have been more effective for you to show up out of nowhere later today and snatch me?"

"Are you actually trying to teach us how to kidnap you?" Bill asked him disbelief.

"Well, I guess I am, since you seem to be very bad at it," George replied. "Now, on to the second thing I have to say: is it really possible that none of you has talked to Mum or Dad or even Ginny, for that matter, a single time since yesterday afternoon?" He turned to Ron. "Don't you still live at home? Do people not talk to each other anymore at that house?"

"What's your business lecturing me about talking to people?!" Ron replied. "And what difference would it make if I'd talked to Mum?"

"The difference would be that you'd already know about the third thing I have to say, which is that you idiots woke me up at six in the morning to have a conversation that comes a day too late."

"What do you mean a day too late?" Percy asked in alarm.

"What have you done?" Bill added, glaring.

"Nothing you wouldn't approve of, apparently: I went home and told Mum that I _was_ coming over for Christmas," he offered.

The whole room went quiet for about half a minute.

"You are?" Charlie asked, the first to find his words.

"Yes, I _am_," he confirmed it_. "_Like I said, I went home yesterday. I talked to Mum, Dad and Ginny, I apologized to them and I would have apologized to you too if Mum had managed to get a hold of you like she tried."

"But… why?" Ron asked.

George raised his eyebrows. "You guys just spent the last five minutes telling me _why_," he pointed out.

Bill cleared his throat. "I think he meant to ask what got you to… realise an apology was in order."

George paused. Izzy had yelled at him, he'd broken her heart in return, she'd nearly branded him a lost cause and that had shaken him enough to get some sense into his head. Of course, saying that out loud would probably bring up questions he just wasn't ready to answer yet. "Call it an epiphany."

"An epiphany?" Percy asked, sceptical. "Just like that?"

"Can't you just be happy I'm willing to admit that you're right?" he asked, huffing. "I was wrong, okay? And I'm sorry. And tonight I'm going to Christmas dinner and I'm going to make an effort not to ruin the whole thing. You don't _need _to drag me there."

All four brothers eyed him with some doubt in their faces. Ron was the first to voice it. "How can we be sure you aren't just making that up so we'll leave you alone?" he asked.

"I don't know, Ron. Because you could just floo Mum and ask her? Because you could just check my pantry and see the shocking amount of leftovers she sent over last night because, apparently, I'm the most malnourished bloke she's ever seen? Take your pick."

The other redheads looked at each other for a moment. "Ron, go check the pantry," Bill ordered, standing up and getting to business. "I'll apparate to the Burrow and check his story."

"I told you that you could just floo there," George reminded him.

"Don't you think we already know you've blocked us, Mum and Dad and pretty much everyone in the world who'd care from getting anywhere near your floo connection?" Charlie replied.

"Well, I've already unblocked you, genius," George replied. "Go on. Give it a try."

Bill seemed a bit sceptical but, approaching the fireplace, he grabbed a handful of floo powder from a pot on the mantle and threw it in, sticking just his head inside. It didn't seem to block him so, in his brothers' eyes, George gad just passed the first test.

Ron was already taking care of the second one, helping himself to a slice of Treacle Tart he'd found in the pantry. "'t's def'tly Mum's," he declared though a mouthful as he stood at the kitchen area, quickly diving in for a second bite.

"Ron! It's a quarter past six in the morning!" Percy said in a scolding manner.

"So?"

"So, that's terribly unhealthy!" he said. "Put it down – you already know it's Mum's."

Ron shrugged. "Piss off, Percy. _You_'re not Mum." And, just to make a point, he took yet a third bite, bigger than the first two put together.

Charlie stretched on the sofa. "Bring me one of those, will you? I've only slept like three hours – I could use the sugar," he said, much to Percy's disapproval.

"Get it yourself. I'm not your house-elf," Ron replied, taking the last bite and already planning to help himself to a second slice.

For all his sleep deprivation, Charlie did get up, even though he mumbled something about a 'brat' under his breath. Percy, in the meanwhile, remained seated, shaking his head silently at his brothers' complete lack of discipline. George, on the other hand, just observed them without a word, Bill included as he spoke to who he assumed to be his mother at the fireplace, his arms gesturing as his head remained seemingly on fire.

"So, you're okay, then?" George heard Percy asking before turning to him.

"Nope," he replied honestly. He had no reason to lie to him, even if the brother he was talking to just happened to be the gittiest one he had. "I'm trying to get better, though."

Percy nodded. "I…" he started saying before stopping himself.

"You what?" George asked.

He shook his head. "Never mind. You probably don't want to hear about it."

"I'll tell you to shut up if I don't want to hear about it," he replied.

Percy hesitated again but, in the end, he spoke. "I was with him when it happened… Fred… at the battle." He paused, then, giving George a chance to stop him there. When he didn't, he continued. "He was laughing. I'd just told a joke and he could barely believe it. He was laughing so hard when…" He paused there, leaving the sentence unfinished even though both of them knew what he was talking about. "It was quick. Painless. There's no such thing as a good way to die but, as far as ends go…"

Again, Percy didn't finish but George understood what he meant. As far as ends went, Fred's couldn't have possibly been more faithful to his way of life. Thinking that seemed like a sick joke but what else could he possibly think? There was no undoing it now… "I hope it was a good joke," George said.

Percy seemed surprised that he said so. "I suppose not, but it's only natural he didn't have the bar set too high for me. I barely remember it – something about resigning from my job…"

George nodded, just as Bill left the floo, approaching them looking drained of all colour. "Mum confirms his story."

"Then why do you look pale as a ghost?" Charlie asked, back on his armchair holding a fork and a plate with a huge slice of tart on it.

Bill gulped. "Because Ginny was there and she heard what we were doing here. I guess she didn't like being left out… I had no idea bat-bogey hexes could travel all the way through a floo connection," he said.

"You morons," George said in disbelief. "You didn't tell her you were doing this?"

"We started talking about it back before she was on school break. I guess we forgot to let her know once she was home," Bill replied.

"Well, I'd watch my back for the time being if I were you. Being deprived of a perfectly good chance to kick my arse is something she takes very seriously," he warned them.

"We'll keep that in mind," Bill replied with a tone of finality.

"So, that's it, then?" Ron asked suddenly. "He's just fine now? Sounds too easy, if you asked me." And, even though his brothers didn't say the same out loud, George could see that they had the same kind of doubts, judging by the way they looked at each other

"Maybe to _you,_" George replied. "And I'm not 'fine'. This isn't something you just turn on or off… this is something I have to work on and maybe I'll manage it, maybe I'll crash and burn. Right now I'm hoping for the first, which is more than I could say yesterday."

There was a sliver of comprehension on their faces, indicating he might have just sounded unsure enough for it not to sound made up.

"Well, if you ever need a hand…" Charlie offered, getting several nods of agreement as he said so.

George nodded too. "Thanks. But now what I really need is a shower. It's getting pretty clear I'm not getting any more sleep, so I ought to at least wake myself up fully since I'm supposed to face a mob of idiots who left their Christmas shopping for the last minute in a few hours."

Bill sighed. "Alright, but you'd better show up tonight," he warned him. "Count on us to hunt you down all the way to the depths of the Earth and drag you there kicking and screaming if needed."

"I'll make sure I don't sound too pitchy when you do that," George replied.

"Same applies if you try to sneak out when you're already there. Step a foot out of the house on your own and we'll be right on you, Georgie," Charlie pointed out. "Just doing our duty as the good brothers we are."

They were starting to sound a bit more like wardens than brothers at that moment, but George couldn't really blame them for not quite trusting him yet. They all left after a few minutes and a couple more warnings… or at least George thought so. When he went down to the shop, about half an hour later, he found a good part of his work already done and Ron casually stocking up shelves. When asked about it, Ron justified his presence by saying that there was no point in going home when he'd just have to be back in little more than an hour. Actually, George was fairly sure him wanting to stay was more about wanting to be out of Ginny's way or, possibly, keeping him not too far out of his sight in case he was planning to make a run for it, after all, than practicality. He didn't argue, nonetheless, since there was plenty to be done down at the shop.

It was tense at first, being in the same room for an extended period of time, mostly due to months and months of being barely brothers, let alone friends, however (after about an hour) silence was broken and Ron actually started to turn out to be pretty good company. Mostly, he filled him in on the highlights of the family's latest news: apparently, Bill was freaking out over the fact that his wife was starting to get baby fever, Charlie had broken one heart too many in Romania and spent a week in the hospital sometime in October nursing four broken limbs, courtesy of the scorned girl's older brother, and Percy had transferred to the Department of Magical Transportation in the Ministry.

Later, as the rest of the staff arrived, he gota few odd looks for his decreased sourness, especially from Remus, who'd been aware that something had changed the previous day. No one asked questions, though, – no one but Remus, at least, though he'd made a point not to be pushy and just inquire if he'd managed to fix that mistake he'd mentioned the previous day – and he supposed that because of the long months when he'd made a point of having 'leave George Weasley alone' as a golden rule.

Though the changing part of him did feel a bit guilty about the distance he'd placed between himself and the people working for him (even Lee, who was one of his most faithful friends), he was thankful for not having to answer too many questions just yet – somehow it felt easier to just keep going one step at a time without having to stop every few minutes to talk it over with someone. He promised himself he'd make it up to them later, though – he owed it to them, to himself and even to the memory of Fred.

He got started at that by ordering everyone who worked under him home to their families the moment the last late-shopper stepped foot out the door as they closed around lunch-time. Their first reaction had been to stare at him like he was mad. It wasn't an unreasonable reaction: the shop was a mess to the point that one might guess there had been a small riot in it, so there was still plenty to be done before locking up and going home.

It had taken quite a bit of insistence on his part, mostly arguing that it was only fair they got to go home early since they'd held the fort without him the previous day, but in the end, after assuring them that, no, he wasn't trying to get them out of his hair and, no, he wasn't sending them away to do something really stupid in their absence like torching the place, they ended up giving in and leaving. Well, most of them because, once more, Ron was the exception, that time openly admitting that he didn't want to go home to face Ginny yet (but, as George suspected, secretly wishing to just keep an eye on him).

Again, George let him stay and it wasn't very long before he started feeling thankful he had: if that didn't happen when he'd sent his brother to make a deposit at Gringotts and he'd spent two and a half hours standing in line instead of him, then certainly it did sometime during the four hours (four hours that would have certainly not been enough if George had been on his own) it took them to clean up and have the shelves restocked and tagged for Boxing Day Sales.

By the time they reached the Burrow, the sky was starting to turn orange with sunset and voices of people and laughter sounded from the inside of the house even before he went in.

Once George did go in, Ron having followed the smell of food into the kitchen, one might think he was more famous than Harry himself – it seemed like _everyone_ wanted him to join in on their conversations: his brothers, Remus and Tonks, Izzy's grandparents… even the Lovegoods, who'd been invited for the first time to Christmas that year. It was all a bit… disconcerting. He kind of wished Harry was around to be the most noteworthy person in the room instead of him (not, he knew, that Harry's fame would be worth anything in that house, where everyone had always talked to him, joked with him and made fun of him like he was one of the family) but he seemed to be late for whatever reason, along with Isabelle and her parents.

It wasn't that having everyone wanting to talk to him and welcome him back into the family was a bad thing – it was just a bit of a shock, coming back from months of self-imposed loneliness only to be dropped straight into a crowd. The cheering and the generally lively tone of the conversations certainly made the notion that it was Christmas much more palpable but, at the same time, they also made it more… distant, because every once in a while, he'd find himself waiting for someone else to join the cheering and the conversations – someone he should know by then that would never come. Not anymore.

By the time he managed to excuse himself from one conversation without being dragged straight into another one, he felt like he'd been holding his breath underwater for an hour and really needed to come up to surface in order to take a little breath or else he might just drown. So, before anyone could notice he wasn't currently engaged on yet another conversation, he dashed for the door, hoping to get a few moments of quietness outside.

"Going somewhere, son?" he heard his father's voice asking from behind him as he put his coat on.

He turned around, looking slightly alarmed like a kid who'd just been caught with his hands in the cookie jar. "I'm not making a run for it," he immediately said.

Arthur raised his eyebrows, silently pointing out how obvious it was that he _was_, in fact,making said run for it.

He sighed. "Alright, I am, but just for a little bit," George stated. "It's a bit crowded in here. I mean, it's great being home again but…"

"I imagine it's a bit exhausting too, isn't it?" Arthur pointed out.

George nodded. "Looks like everyone wants to talk to me today…" he said.

"Well, everyone has missed you quite a bit," his father told him. "No one would blame you if you wanted to take a little break, though – you don't have to sneak out."

"Actually, I sort of do because Bill, Charlie, Percy and Ron swore they'd hunt me down and drag me back if I stepped foot out of the door alone tonight," George pointed out.

"Well, I'm sure they weren't being that literal," Arthur said. "In any case, if they were, I can hold them off for a while. Try not to take more than a half hour out there, though – your mother says the turkey shouldn't take much longer than that."

George's lips curled. "Thanks, Dad."

His father patted him on the back. "Good to have you back, my boy."

The sky was a dark shade of greying purple once he stepped out and the air was freezing cold. It might just snow again before midnight brought Christmas Day along, adding a healthy blanket of white over the slippery melting snow covering the ground, which ought to be a couple of days old, at least.

He found himself initially spending those moments of solitude by walking around the orchard seemingly aimlessly. _Seemingly. _Because, the more he walked, the more aware he was of where his feet were taking him, even though he hadn't consciously ordered them to go there. For the first time since his funeral, he was going to visit his brother's grave.

He couldn't say he'd been purposely avoiding the grave or anything – mostly, in avoiding his family (and, by extension, his family home) he'd kept Fred's grave at a distance as well, if not for anything else, to avoid running into somebody else visiting it. In hindsight, that sounded awfully cold and selfish. Just yet another one of those things he'd done in his grief that he just couldn't understand anymore – in grieving Fred, he'd been a jerk to him as well. _Well done,_ he thought to himself sarcastically.

But he was past that now – well, trying very hard to get past that – and spending Christmas with his loved ones. And no matter how dead he was, Fred was one of them.

They'd placed his grave on a meadow just past the orchard: a very green one, when a carpet of ice wasn't covering it, overlooking the village. And, right by the grave, a tiny shrub that was to become a tree had been planted in his late brother's honour. He wasn't sure what kind of tree it was – at the time of the funeral, he'd barely been aware enough to tie his own shoes, let alone know what sort of tree was being planted. In any case, if Fred were there, he was sure it wouldn't have been the meadow, or the view, or the tree he'd care about the most – it was the fact that forever by his side would lay one Angelina Johnson.

She'd been buried there with her family's permission, which had been as aware as anyone who'd known Angelina that that would have been her wish. Her parents, Muggles, didn't live very far away, having moved to the outskirts of Exeter (only twenty minutes away by Muggle means) sometime during the war, meaning they could visit her often, not in a grimly little cemetery but on a beautiful meadow under the sun.

He wondered what they did during their visits; or his family during theirs to Fred. He must've stood there for about ten minutes feeling solemn and wondering what to do about it. Should he talk? Even before Fred was gone, he'd always found it odd when people spoke to the dead when visiting their graves – it seemed pointless and a bit mad to him. Back then, when people were dead, they were just dead in his mind… now, he couldn't stand to think that. He didn't know what happened after death – no one did – but he had to believe that, maybe somewhere out there, Fred could hear him, so maybe the talking thing wasn't so mad after all. In any case, he was pretty sure that he'd sound a lot less mad while talking to Fred by his grave than while doing it anywhere else…

Still, he didn't know what to say. _Hello? Sorry I completely became a jerk after you died?_ Should he make it simple? Should he go on a monologue? Because he wasn't sure he was very comfortable with that… not yet, at least.

Suddenly, a small flurry of snow crossed his line of sight and, just like that, he knew what to say. What else could he possibly say on that day?

"Merry Christmas, wherever you are," he whispered.

It wasn't much but it was a start and, for whatever reason, it felt like it had lifted a huge weight off his back. But, of course, he couldn't end there – no, because if somewhere out there the dead could hear him and he didn't at the very least acknowledge Angelina Johnson, she'd pull every string she could possibly reach in order to get him hit by lighting or whacked in some other freak way as payback.

"Keep an eye on him for me, Ange," he said to the grave of his brother's girlfriend before giving Fred's one last look and walking away, actually needing to use his wand to light his way back home.

One might call him mad but the snow blowing in the wind felt like a gesture of acknowledgement. It probably wasn't, but he didn't care. In his mind, somewhere out there his brother _had_ heard him and, even though he hadn't been able to get a tangible answer, the snow would have to do. If thinking that made him mad, then so be it. He knew for a fact he wasn't any madder that day than he'd been on the previous one.

He used the back door to enter the house that time, going straight into the kitchen only to find it mildly chaotic. There were all sorts of dirty cookware floating in line over the cabinets waiting for their turn to reach the sink and be washed by unmanned brushes and sponges, pots and pans stirring themselves at the stove and a mop cleaning up some sort of mess that appeared to have been covering part of the floor. All the while, his mother stood at the stone oven apparently examining the roasting turkey… however, two seconds later she was turning on her heel and using a dish cloth to swat Charlie, who'd been standing a few feet behind her attempting to illicitly sample her butterscotch pudding.

"Step back from that pudding," Molly warned her son, to George's amusement. "Every single year… how many more times do I need to tell you to keep your hands away from my deserts before dinner? I ought to bend you over my knee right now," she half-heartedly threatened him.

"Aw, Mum, I was just trying to help," Charlie assured her. "It can never hurt to taste food before serving it. Imagine how embarrassing it would be you serving bad pudding for desert."

"Who do you think you're fooling? You know very well I never send out anything I don't taste myself first, Charles Septimus Weasley," his mother sternly pointed out just as Fleur breezed into the room through the other door, carrying an empty platter on her hands.

"Ze Cucumber Zandwiches ran out, Mollee. Are zere any more?" Fleur informed asked her mother-in-law.

"I don't think so, dear, but there's no need – the Turkey is cooked," Molly told her before turning back to Charlie. "Since you seem in such dire need of making yourself useful, you can go on and carry those potatoes to the table. And make sure the heat-preserving charm stays on," she said as she covered a large tray of roast potatoes resting on the kitchen table with a clean dishcloth. "Be careful not to slip in the snow."

George might have found that last warning a bit odd, had he not been told in advance that Christmas dinner was to be hosted in the shed, of all places, that year. It seemed his mother had gone a little overboard at inviting people that year, even though they were rather close friends – neither the kitchen nor the living room were large enough to seat them all for a meal and, since there was no adequate weather for them to eat outdoors, they were left in a bit of a pickle. Apparently, the Blacks had offered their house to host Christmas again, but his mother had been pretty adamant that it was their responsibility their year, so, after a lot of planning, Molly Weasley had reached the conclusion that her husband's freakishly large shed was the only place large enough to place the tables that could hold them all.

Honestly, George hadn't gone there yet and he simply couldn't see it – the place was certainly big, but it was only big because his father had so much clutter in it that he kept having to expand it. One had to wonder how they'd fit a couple of tables in the midst of broken Muggle refrigerators and yet another attempt at building a 'more discreet' flying car.

"Doesn't _he _get a tray to carry too?" Charlie replied, nodding at George and for the first time acknowledging his presence in the room.

"Not just yet. He didn't try to stick his hands into my pudding," Molly informed him.

"Neither did I – I was using a spoon!" Charlie retorted. "And, in any case, he snuck out of the house – doesn't that classify as an offence?"

George was about to kindly point out that, technically, the fact that he'd told his father he was going out (only after he'd been caught at it, sure) meant he hadn't actually snuck out, yet his mother was quicker at responding.

"Well, he _shouldn't _have to sneak out – he's your brother, not a prisoner. He can go wherever he wants," Molly responded in a scolding manner. "Now, get on your way. People are hungry. And tell your father to get everyone to the shed just as soon as Sirius, Mia and their lot arrive," she instructed her son.

When Charlie seemed tempted to complain some more, Molly only needed to give him a certain trademark Mum look for him to give up and walk away (not before rolling his eyes and sending a glare at his brother as he walked past him, of course), Fleur following him with a tray of assorted vegetables on her hands.

"You boys and your antics," she said before turning to George just as soon as they were alone. "Are they being too hard on you, dear? Your brothers, I mean. I'm so sorry I wasn't able to get in touch with them in time," Molly said. "They were all gone every time I tried to get in touch – planning this morning's little stunt, it turns out. Honestly, showing up at someone's doorstep at six in the morning… did I raise you boys to be that rude?"

George sighed. "They're being fine, Mum. As much as it pains me to admit this, they wouldn't have felt the need to make such a big intervention if it wasn't for me. In all, they were just being good brothers."

"Tell that to your sister – she's refused to even acknowledge them all afternoon," his mother informed him.

He supposed they should count themselves lucky for it – he'd have expected her to smite them like the hand of god with far worse than the Bat-bogey hex she'd sent Bill's way before rather than just giving them the cold shoulder. "Well, I'm sure she'll get over it, eventually," he said after some time.

"Of course she will but it's hardly a good time to be holding a grudge, is it?" his mother told him. "Hopefully Harry or Izzy will be able to talk some sense into her when they arrive. Your father and I have tried and she won't budge."

"Right," he mumbled, suddenly reminded of the fact that they (Izzy, in particular) were still late. "Weren't they supposed to be here already, anyway?"

"They were, but their brother is a bit under the weather," Molly stated, returning her attention to the Turkey and using another heat-preserving charm to keep it fresh. "You know him – little Alex, the poor thing. Mia flooed before and said she gave him some Pepper-up potion and was waiting for it to kick in so he won't be too uncomfortable through dinner. They should be here at any minute, though – it usually doesn't take much more than one hour for the potion to take full effect."

George nodded silently and Molly, wiping her hands on her apron, gave him a look of concern. "Are you alright, dear? Is this little get-together too much for you? Your father said you were a bit overwhelmed – that you had to step out because of it."

"I'm fine, Mum. I just needed a little time on my own," he assured her. "I went to see Fred's grave," he found himself blurting for no reason.

Judging by her look, Molly was surprised. She didn't let it show in her words, though. "It's a beautiful spot, isn't it? The view of sunset is lovely from there," she commented.

"I didn't notice," George confessed. "The sunset, I mean. But it's a good place. He'd have liked it. Ange too."

"Her parents came for tea last week," Molly told him. "We invite them over sometimes. Your father and I actually asked them to come over today, but they already had plans with their family up north. A pity – they're lovely people."

George nodded. "I know."

Molly sighed. "Anyhow, I set up that cot for you in Ron's room. He said he didn't mind you staying there for tonight."

"Thanks. You didn't have to go through setting it up, though. I could've done it myself – it's my own fault I won't stay in my…"

"No, it isn't," Molly assured him. "The fact that you're in this house when you couldn't two days ago is more than any of us could hope for. Grief is a strange thing, Georgie – when your uncles died, I couldn't stand looking at a single picture of them. Your father had to keep them all in a box in the shed and it was five years before I had the courage to ask for them back. Some things move at their own pace – it's best not to push too hard."

George nodded silently, glad she thought so yet, before he could say a word of thanks, Izzy's mother stepped into the room in a hurry.

"Molly, I am so sorry. We're so late," Mia said as she walked in.

"Oh, don't apologize – you're not the first person to have to deal with a poorly child. How is he?"

"Mostly sleepy now, but I think he'll get through dinner."

"Well, there are plenty of beds upstairs for you to put him down, afterwards. Poor thing, getting ill at Christmas," Molly commented.

"Well, hopefully it's just a passing thing," Mia told her friend, before turning to the other person in the room and noticing, for the first time, that it was George. Not that she hadn't seen him already, but it certainly wasn't until that moment that it hit her that him being there was not something she ought to expect, given the breakdown Molly had had not two days before. "George, I didn't know you were coming today," she said.

The tone of surprise in her voice caught George by… well, surprise. One would have thought Izzy might have mentioned it in passing at home. Then again, it might've just not come up… or maybe she was refraining from voicing it too much in case he changed his mind. He hoped it was more about the former. "It was a last-minute decision," he told her.

Mia smiled pleasantly. "Well, if you asked me, it was a good decision. Welcome back. I'm sure a lot of people will be happy to have you here." Her own daughter being one of the main ones… of course Mia was starting to realize Izzy might just already know George was coming – that certainly would explain the considerable improving on her mood since the previous evening. "On to business," she said, turning to the redheaded boy's mother. "Do you have anything for me to do, Molly?"

"Everything is mostly done now, though I suppose you could lend a hand at carrying these trays. George, dear, could you get those pigs in a blanket on the counter?" she said, picking up the large tray with the turkey.

George nodded and got a hold of it, as Mia got a couple of serving bowls herself. When he stepped out, Mia and his mother leading the way, he saw most people were also leaving the house through the main entrance, heading heavily-cloaked into the shed. He spotted Izzy among them, walking alongside Ginny and Luna Lovegood, though the other two seemed to excuse themselves from Izzy's company as soon as Ginny saw him and nudged her best friend in his direction.

Even in the dark and in the midst of the falling snow, he saw it as she stopped where she stood, apparently waiting for him to reach her as her friends kept walking towards the shed. She was smiling when he reached her, not a wide smile, just a soft one that was more than enough to show she was glad to see him.

"Hi, there."

"Hi," he replied.

"So, it seems you still haven't given up on trying," she said, referring to their conversation from the previous day.

George shook his head. "Not just yet. I guess you could say I woke up at six this morning to plenty of incentives."

"What sort of incentives?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, the usual… four brothers knocking on my door, setting up a whole intervention on Mum's behalf without knowing that had already been taken care of and that I'd already talked to her," he casually.

"At six in the morning? Don't they sleep?"

"Apparently not," George told her. "To be fair, it was a good plan: I never saw it coming, so I probably wouldn't have had a chance to run if I was still in that whole…" he hesitated, wondering how to describe his previous state "… anti-social mood."

"And how did it go?"

He shrugged. "Well, I guess, though they're being cautiously optimistic about my attempt to change, leaning more towards the cautious than the optimistic."

"Just give them time – they'll start moving to the optimistic side when they see you're really trying to make things better," she said. "I did."

"I hope so," he said, curling his lips.

She gave him a little smile, as if to encourage him to go on hoping. "So, has it been as hard as you thought it would be? Being here for Christmas?"

He shrugged. "So far, it's been mostly strange. A bit… wrong sometimes but actually nice on others. The night is still young, though."

"If you asked me, I'd say it can only get better from now," Izzy told him. "I mean, Christmas dinner in your father's shed? Sounds promising."

George's lips actually curled at that. "Don't ask me how that works – I haven't had a chance to see it yet," he told her. "Dad tells me Mum has been cleaning it for weeks, though. I think your parents and your house-elf even came over to help them move some things around a bunch of times," George told her.

Izzy chuckled. "Well, I guess we're about to see if it paid off."

"Yeah. We should probably go in now. It's freezing and Mum will likely want these," he said, nodding at the tray he was carrying.

She nodded. "Let's go, then," she told him.

They made their way to the shed side-by-side in a mainly comfortable silence and, upon reaching it, Izzy moved out of the way do he could go in first and place the heavy tray down.

It actually looked pretty good, he thought of the shed once he stood inside. Most of his father's clutter had been pushed against a single wall (the bulkiest items having either been removed, reduced in size or covered with towels in order to serve as side tables) and a large piece of red cloth blocked them from view in a curtain-like fashion. Christmas decorations had been placed all over, from small lights on the walls to a tall decorated fir standing opposite the door. A small sitting area was placed on a corner, consisting of an old sofa his father usually had lying around all dusty in the shed (which looked clean for the first time ever, not to mention actually comfortable now that it was covered with one of his mother's quilts) and a couple of armchairs that usually were in his parents' bedroom. In front of the sofa stood a cast iron oven with actual fire burning inside – he had no idea where it had come from but, judging by how old it was, it must be yet another one of his father's Muggle salvages.

In all, the place actually looked so good that it was probably going to be a pain for his father to convince his mother to let him put it back the way it was. It wouldn't surprise George if the following summer Arthur took it upon himself to add yet another extension to his already overextended shed in order to reclaim some space for his beloved clutter.

At his mother's urging, he placed the tray on the long table (or rather two tables – the ones they usually set up when eating outdoors – pushed together) that stood at the centre of the room. Most people were already sitting around it and, since most seats were occupied, he and Izzy ended up sitting considerably apart from each other, on opposite sides of the table and a few seats away from being able to directly face each other, which made talking through dinner virtually impossible. That part bothered him a bit since talking to Izzy was… well, kind of a therapeutic thing to him, but watching Tonks, who sat by his side, repeatedly kick Charlie under the table whenever he tried to convince her to let him borrow her baby to use as a 'bird magnet' (and, George assumed, he didn't mean the ones with wings) actually provided a considerable amount of entertainment.

It was a lively dinner, in any case, despite the glaring absence of Fred from the table. People ate while joking around, glasses were filled and emptied in a flash and about half a dozen parallel conversations sounded around the table. By Ginny's side, Izzy struggled to keep her tiny sister (who'd crawled onto her lap at some point and firmly refused to eat anywhere else) from using her hands as cutlery and even more to manage to feed herself while a toddler sat on her lap, only succeeding when Ginny pulled the little girl onto her own lap and Harry started distracting her by making faces at her from across the table, sending young Mary Black into a fit of giggles.

By the time desserts were served, about five different toasts had been made by various members of the party – it was nothing new, as that had sort of become a tradition that repeated itself every year. Usually, he and Fred would join in, often toasting to the most random things, from the dessert spoons ('_how could we possibly enjoy the wonders of Mum's triffle without you to guide it into our mouths, oh mighty spoon?_') to the turkey itself ('_may its soul forever rest in peace in turkey heaven and its body fill our stomachs in all its seasoned glory_'), that year George refrained himself from doing so. Somehow it just didn't seem right without his twin around to speak the punch line – maybe one day it would, but not yet. And if that particular toast was missed, nobody made a point of mentioning it to him.

A toast that wasn't missing was the one his father made to Fred. George had sort of seen that one coming but it didn't make it any less… sorrowful to see his brother be the source of a toast without being there to witness it himself. Still, he couldn't complain about the toast itself – later, if someone asked him the exact words his father used, he wouldn't have been able to repeat them from memory, but one thing he would have been able to say was that Fred would have given his seal of approval: it was heartfelt enough to get a little tear out of his mother's eye, but not sad enough to have everyone looking solemn.

There had even been a faint attempt at a joke somewhere in there, not very successful because the feelings of loss were still too fresh for Arthur to really put his heart in it. Nonetheless, it was only right that he at least tried – anyone who knew Fred was fully aware that any respectable attempt at getting people to raise their glasses to him had to at least be accompanied by a decent dose of laughter.

And people did laugh – not as Arthur struggled to form a good joke but seconds later as a missile of Christmas pudding flew through the air and hit Harry James Potter, saviour of the Wizarding World, squarely on the face.

"Bloody h…" Harry mumbled, touching his own face in disbelief as everyone around him laughed.

"Mary!" he heard Mia shout.

He turned his face to the little girl in question, who was back on Isabelle's lap, and saw her indeed holding up a spoon, marking herself as the culprit. Only it wasn't on her face George saw a look of accomplishment being hidden – it was on her elder sister's.

He wasn't sure how she'd done it, but there was no doubt in his mind that the flying pudding was Izzy's doing – maybe she'd coached her sister on the art of catapulting stuff around (which somehow didn't seem like something a two-year-old would just figure out on their own), maybe she'd done it herself and incriminated the kid, who was far too little to get into actual trouble over it. He could just tell she was behind it and her firmly avoiding eye contact wasn't telling him otherwise.

Feeling his lips curling, he made a mental note to thank her later – she'd just created the perfect moment for him.

So, grasping said moment with a fury, he cleared his throat, attempting to gather the attention of everyone around him. Some did look, still sniggering, others were too busy clutching their own stomachs with laughter.

"I believe we were just about to get to the part when we say 'to Fred'?" he pointed out.

Still laughing, most people promptly raised their glasses, Ginny and his brothers leading the way, very few attempting to compose themselves. The words "_To Fred,_" must've rang all the way down to the neighbouring village of Ottery St Catchpole and a strange feeling of accomplishment dawned inside George.

That seemed to be the ending point for the dinner and, from then on, people started to scatter from the table. Those who did remain at the table mostly busied themselves doing the clean-up, stacking up plates and gathering cutlery to be taken into the kitchen.

"That's some aim your sister has," George casually commented to Izzy once he managed to find a moment of semi-privacy with her as she used her wand to banish the contents out of some abandoned glasses.

Izzy chuckled, picking up a few glasses and moving them into a tray to make them easy to carry into the house. "Might just make a half-decent chaser someday day, hum?"

"Sure. Especially with her sister around to serve as her guide and then let her take the glory," George stated, picking up a few glasses himself and moving them to the tray.

"Haven't you heard? I'm no good at Quidditch."

"I wasn't literally referring to Quidditch," he pointed out.

She raised her eyebrows. "Are you accusing me of something, then?"

"No. I'm thanking you for something," he replied.

Her lips started to curl. "Well, I can neither confirm nor deny that there is actually something for you to be thankful for, but if there were, I should probably say something along the lines of 'You're welcome'."

Reading between the lines, she might as well have admitted it all, George thought, forcing himself to look perfectly casual as Sirius made his way to them, Mia standing by the door with her youngest son resting miserably on her hip.

"Izzybel, your Mum and I are going over to the house to put your brother to bed," Sirius said just as Fleur approached as well, pointing her wand to the tray of glasses and making it float after her as she made her way back out of the shed. "Can you and Harry keep an eye on Mary until we come back for her? It'll be easier if we deal with one of them at a time, I think."

"Yeah, sure," she immediately agreed, glancing over at where Mary stood, giggling behind an armchair as Harry appeared to be trying to catch her in order to exact his revenge (probably nothing more than a tickle attack) for the whole pudding thing. "Is he any better? Alex?"

Her father shook his head. "Hopefully he will, once he sleeps it off. Anyway," he said, turning to George, who felt slightly uneasy that Isabelle's father's attention seemed to be on him (could he have noticed something?), even though the man was one of the coolest blokes he knew, being a Marauser and everything,"that was a nice toast."

"Oh," George mumbled, relieved that was what it was about. "Yeah, sure. Though Dad did most of the work."

"He probably wouldn't have managed to make it so prankster-worthy on his own, though," Sirius stated.

"It's probably your daughter we have to thank for that." He purposely didn't specify which daughter, so Sirius quickly assumed he meant Mary.

The Marauder chuckled. "Looks like she's paying dearly for it now," he stated, watching as she narrowly escaped Ginny's grasp by dashing by and hiding under the table, still giggling. Good thing, he thought – the more she ran around madly, the sooner she'd be flat on her face sleeping. "Well, Izzybel, we're off," he told his daughter before making his way over to his wife and exiting the shed with her.

Left alone with Izzy, George raised his eyebrows at her. "Izzybel?"

"Shut up," she flatly replied, taking a seat at the table.

"What? It's cute. Don't you like it?" he asked her, sitting down too.

"Of course I like it, but it's a Dad nickname. For his lips only," she warned him. "It'd be weird if someone else called me that."

"Alright…" he said, lifting his arms up in defeat.

"Speaking of nicknames, there's something I'd been meaning to ask you," she told him, suddenly reminded of it.

"Ask?"

She nodded. "Yeah. It's weird, so don't take it the wrong way, okay? At least not before I explain," she said carefully.

George seemed a bit unsure about it but he still nodded. "Ask away," he urged her.

She sighed. "Please don't call me Izzy ever again," she said, sounding rather tentative about it. "And I mean ever as in… _ever._"

He frowned. "You want to stop going by 'Izzy'?"

"No, I don't mind going by Izzy. I just want _you_ to stop calling me that," she explained.

"Me? But I barely ever call you Izzy. It's everyone else that does."

"Exactly," she replied. "You call me Isabelle. You used to call me Izzy in the beginning but then you started calling me Isabelle – you've been doing it for years. And now every time you call me Izzy it feels… it feels like when my parents call me by my full name – like trouble is coming or you're angry at me. So, just don't do it – that's what I want."

"But how am I supposed to be sure that one day there won't be a situation when I need to call you 'Izzy'?"

"What sort of situation would possibly require you to call me 'Izzy'?" she replied, raising her eyebrows. "It might happen if I was asking you never to use my actual name but I'm not."

"Well, let's imagine that one of these days I run into you somewhere and it just so happens that there's a wanted Death Eater standing right behind you. Am I supposed to waste those extra fractions of a second saying the last syllable of your name before telling you to watch out for the Death Eater behind you?"

"You are _joking, _right? Fractions of a second? _Really_?"

"It's a legitimate concern," he pointed out. "Stuff can happen in a faction of a second."

She huffed. "Well, for your information, my name without the last syllable doesn't sound like 'Izzy'. It sounds like 'Iz'."

"So, you're basically saying that, if I have to shorten your name, I could go with 'Iz' but not with 'Izzy'?" he asked.

"I suppose, if you _really_ have to," she said.

George sighed. "So, it really bothers you that much? That I call you Izzy?" he asked, sounding more serious about it.

She nodded. "I know it's stupid, okay? It's just a nickname and practically everyone uses it and it never bothers me but when you called me that the other day at the shop, it felt like a punch in the gut."

It surprised him to hear that. Sure, he basically always made a point of calling Isabelle by her actual name, now more of habit than anything else. It had never hit him, though, how important that was to her. "If it counts for anything, I wasn't trying to hurt you that day," he said. "It just felt easier to push you away if I pretended you were just another person. Not… you."

The admission almost made her smile because it showed that, even when he didn't care, deep down part of him still had cared.

"Anyway, if it's that important to you, then I solemnly swear that I'll try very hard to never, ever, _ever_ call you Izzy again," he said. "Happy, _Isabelle_?"

Her lips curled. "Very. Thank you," she said, genuinely thankful. Then, mostly out of curiosity, she had to ask something. "What _did_ you start calling me Isabelle for, anyway? Were you trying to annoy me or something?"

"Yeah," he confirmed.

She rolled her eyes. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Because you know me?" he offered. "You know, usually when people go nearly exclusively by their nicknames, it means they're not particularly fond of their actual names, like Ginny and Tonks. Even Lee."

"Lee Jordan?" she asked, getting a nod in return. "He's not actually called Lee?"

George shook his head. "Leland. You didn't hear it from me, though – he'd kill me. He's gone through lengths to have people not know his actual name – I think he's actually changed it at some point. It took years for people to forget it from sorting at Hogwarts, though."

"He really hates it that much?"

"Yeah – he blames his parents. They seemed to go for pretty old-fashioned stuff – Leland, Euphemia…" he made a face at that, but quickly moved on from there. "They've got a dog called Alphonse too. Anyhow, by the time I realized that calling you Isabelle didn't really annoy you, I'd already gotten used to it." Not to mention that, soon enough, thinking of her as Isabelle rather than Izzy, his kid sister's best friend, had made him feel like less of a pervert for starting to like her as more than a friend. "So, yeah, I guess it kind of backfired on me."

She smiled. "I suppose it kind of did," she said, just as Mary came running to her, unceremoniously trying to climb onto her lap, only succeeding once Izzy herself hoisted her up. "Harry's let you off the hook, then?"

Mary didn't answer, probably not quite knowing what being 'let off the hook' meant, but, upon glancing around to spot her brother, she found him with Ginny, Ron and Luna at the sitting area. They seemed to be the only ones remaining in the shed and it just so happened they were starting a game of Exploding Snap. When Ron appeared to be just starting to turn around in order to ask them to join, Ginny (who'd resumed acknowledging her brothers' existence sometime after the toast to Fred) firmly made him turn back front by pulling on his shoulder and loudly ordered him to 'just shuffle'. Then, after telling him something else that no one seemed to make that big a deal of, the redheaded girl turned around and gave Izzy a look that silently confessed she was purposely trying to give them some privacy.

Before she could even start feeling thankful, Mary was already pulling on her hair, requesting that she leaned down to whisper something to her ear. She did so and, after decoding the little girl's blabber, she turned to George, only to find him just watching her and Mary interact. "She's asking who you are," she informed him.

"Really? She doesn't remember me?" he asked.

"No. When was even the last time you've seen her?"

George shrugged. "I dunno – last Christmas, I guess."

"She wasn't even one year old last Christmas," Izzy informed him. "Sorry to break it to you, but kids don't have that great a memory when they're that little," she pointed out before turning to the little girl. "That's George. He's Ginny's brother, just like Alex is your brother," she told her. "And he's my friend too. Do you want to say 'hi'?"

"Hi," she mumbled, uncharacteristically shy.

"Hi," George replied, just as the little girl started rubbing her eyes sleepily. He didn't usually pay much mind to little girls but he had to admit that that one was exceedingly cute, all dimples and pigtails. Maybe it was because she kind of looked like Isabelle – not in a blatantly obvious 'look, it's a clone!' sort of way, but there was certainly some resemblance, especially in the most mischievous looks he'd seen from her before.

"Are you tired?" Izzy asked her.

"No," Mary said, stubbornly shaking her head even though it was clear she couldn't fool anyone.

Izzy rolled her eyes. "Don't let her fool you," Izzy said as she busied herself shifting her sister so she'd be more comfortable. "She's not usually this shy. She _is_ this stubborn, though. Constantly."

"Oh, I'm getting the feeling it's a family trait," George observed.

Izzy raised her eyebrows. "Is that supposed to imply that _I _am stubborn?"

"Not to _imply _as much as it was meant to _state,_" he said. "Shall I refer you to a certain occasion in the past when I rescued you from a battlefield and you nearly bit my head off for it? It happened just a few yards away from here, in case you've forgotten. The rescuing, not the rest."

She gave him a look. "I know where it happened," she mumbled, recalling the moment when he had, indeed, rescued her from the Death Eater invasion that had taken place during Bill's wedding the previous year. "Well, I'll have you know that, in one of her actually useful pieces of wisdom, my grandmother Lulu tends to say that you'll never see a stubborn person walking alone. Takes one to know one."

"Oh, I'm not going to argue with that. You'll never hear me say that being stubborn is a bad thing," he pointed out. Her stubbornness was actually one of the things he liked the most about her – one could have the most interesting arguments with her.

Before Izzy could say anything in response, she heard a throat being cleared and, turning to the source, saw Tonks approaching.

"I come to collect the little pudding-thrower on your lap," the metamorphagus informed Izzy.

"I hope you're not taking her to jail. Pudding-throwing is still not illegal, right?" Izzy asked as she got up in order to pass the half-asleep little girl along.

Tonks snorted. "It could be, for all I know. There are plenty of stupid laws still in place – did you know that up until Bones was made minister there was actually a law saying people couldn't join the Wizengamot unless they had a beard at least a foot long?"

"You're joking," George said in disbelief.

She shook her head. "Not really. Obviously no one followed it, but it still existed. I heard it's illegal to apparate on Thursdays too but I was never able to confirm it myself – those rolls of parchment are miles and miles long. Anyway, it's unlikely I'll be able to find some obscure law about pudding-throwing in there before the limitation period runs out, so she's probably safe. I'm just taking her to your parents."

"Is everything alright? Are they having problems with Alex?" she said, wondering why they couldn't get her themselves.

"Oh, no. He was already asleep when I left – managed to beat Teddy to it and everything. Anyway, I was the one who offered to come here to pick her up. Molly has the bloody wireless blaring about and Celestina Warbeck's annual Christmas show is on… hopefully by the time I get back it will be over. Fat chance, I know, but there's always the possibility that a meteor will fall on the wireless station and get it to shut up altogether." She turned to the little girl. "Let's go now, sweetie?"

Mary frantically shook her head. "No! Woo! I wan' Woo," she said, looking around with bleary eyes.

"Oh, I think she'd saying she wants her stuffed toy, Wooly. It's a sheep," Izzy said. "Haven't seen it with her in a while, though. Can you wait while I check if she dropped it somewhere here?"

Tonks nodded. "Yeah, go on," she said, holding the little girl as she kept on looking around in horror, searching for her stuffed sheep.

As Izzy left, George's eyes followed her at first, only stopping once he saw her kneeling on the floor to search under the table. By the time he turned elsewhere, his eyes landed on Tonks and Mary, only to notice that the former seemed to be looking at him with a cocky little grin on her face, as if she knew something that he didn't.

"What?" he asked.

"What what?" the metamorphagus replied, trying to seem innocent.

"What are you smiling at me for?"

"Just a little feeling or personal enlightenment," she told him. "You know, that kind that hits you when you see a loose end being tied up right in front of you."

George raised his eyebrows. For some reason, he had a feeling said loose end concerned him in some way. Part of him didn't want to know but, still, he had to ask. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"On, nothing, really. I was recalling this time I had a conversation with two certain someones – must've been about a year and a half ago. Something about one of those certain someones liking a girl slightly younger than him and the other certain someone wanting me to talk him out of caring about that. You see, every once in a while I find myself wondering whatever happened to that girl and you know what? I think I've just figured it out."

In his mind, he felt like he must've stared at her for about ten minutes, although it wasn't actually any longer than thirty seconds. He certainly recalled the conversation she was referring to – he even knew the exact date when it had happened: the first day of September from the previous year. It had been on the day when he'd kissed Isabelle for the very first time… the day when he'd called it 'stupid'. He'd been dumb enough to tell Fred about it and his brother had gone out of his way to convince him that making a move on Izzy was a good idea, even bringing Tonks's testimony into the conversation due to her experience in being happily married to a considerably older man.

Of course, the last thing he'd expected then was for the conversation to come bit him in the arse one year on.

"Am I wrong?" she asked.

George sighed. "Can this 'certain someone' trust you to keep quiet about it?"

The metamorphagus just smiled. "I knew it! And of course I will. Little warning, though: if that leads somewhere, brace yourself for when her father finds out. Oh, I'd like to be a fly in the wall that day."

"Merlin, Tonks," George mumbled, alarmed.

"Just saying," she replied. "If it's any comfort, my opinion is the same as it was that day: go for it." He seemed about to say something, most likely against it. She stopped him before he had the chance. "Take your time to put yourself back together – just remember she's around. Oh, and if you're trying to keep it quiet, avoid talking to her in public – you're not fooling anyone when you do it."

George opened his mouth to say something but, before he could, Izzy approached them again.

"Here it is," she said, lifting her sister's little arm and tucking the stuffed animal under it. "Found it behind the sofa."

"Kids will just drop things in the weirdest places, won't they? I keep finding Teddy's toys all over the place. The other day I found one of his dummies in the bathtub – Merlin knows how it got there," the metamorphagus said with a chuckle. "Well, I guess we're off now, aren't we, Mary?" she asked her goddaughter who was having trouble at keeping her eyes open, now that she had Wooly to cuddle with. "And if any of you figure out a plan to get Celestina Warbeck to shut up without causing a row with Molly or breaking her heart, please put it in practice or else I'll be hiding away all night." And, with that request, the woman walked out of the shed.

As she made her way out, George didn't remove his eyes from her, still quite affected by her words about himself and Izzy.

"Everything alright?" the girl in question asked.

He nodded. "Yeah, just thinking."

"Well, Harry, Ginny, Ron and Luna are having a game of exploding snap over there," she said, pointing at the sitting area. "Want to go bother them to let us join? It looks interesting – Harry was just putting out a fire on Ron's hair."

George chuckled. "Well, I couldn't possibly miss another chance to see that, could I?"

Later, as they sat on the sofa area playing the game (more like getting their arses kicked by Ginny), he'd realize that, not once in the past twenty minutes had he gone through a single moment of angst over Fred's death. It had been there – the knowledge of it – deep in his brain (as it would always be), but not for a second had it clouded his mind, not for a moment had it caused him to pay any mind to that little voice that urged him to muck up everything all over again.

But he knew that wasn't it. He wasn't magically cured. Demons would probably come back but, for the first time in a very long time, for a moment there he knew with absolute certainty that, at some point in the future, he might actually be just fine.

**A/N2: I hope you en****joyed it. **Feedback is welcome, as always! Review!


	6. Misery

**26 December 1998**

The universe sure had a funny way of saying 'Merry Christmas', Izzy mused early in the morning of Boxing Day.

She remembered when she was little and things were as simple as being a good girl getting her presents and being a bad girl getting her a lump of coal. Apparently now the guidelines also said that living through a war, risking their lives for the right side and saving probably thousands of lives got them a lovely outbreak of Dragon Pox on Christmas Day…

To be fair, it wasn't until Boxing Day that they figured out what was really going on: Christmas had mostly been about managing Alex's 'cold', which had been quickly caught by Mary as well. He might have gotten praise over being so good at sharing if it wasn't for the fact that said sharing involved two miserable and feverish children, four bewildered family members and one overworked house-elf.

And so, after a long night, during which her parents had taken turns keeping an eye on the kids, Izzy had gone into Alex's room in the morning only to find her mother asleep in a makeshift bed on the floor beside the bed where two greenish children finally slept peacefully. Truth to be told, once her mother had woken up, she'd been more relieved than anything else upon realizing that what was wrong with the kids was actually Dragon Pox: granted, the disease on itself was a piece of work to deal with, but it was just one of those things that people in the Wizarding World generally ended up catching at one point or another in their lives. The good news were that, once it was out of the way, it was almost certainly never coming back, which made Izzy more thankful than ever about the fact that she'd had it alongside Harry years before. Another dose of Dragon Pox was a Christmas present she was tempted to politely decline…

"So what do we do now?" Izzy asked her mother as she reached up to remove series of vials, flasks and bags out of their potion-ingredient-filled overhead cupboard and passing them to Kreacher so he could start brewing copious amounts of Pepperup potion.

"Well, for now we let them sleep," Mia said as she kept an eye on the eggs frying at the stove. "They barely did it last night and they seem well enough for now. After breakfast we can try and get a healer from St Mungo's to make a house call."

"_You_'re a healer," Izzy pointed, frowning at the disgusting contents of one of the flasks. "Is this rotten?" she asked, showing it to Kreacher, who promptly shook his head. She felt bile rising up all the way through her throat just thinking of people consuming such a thing. "Never, _ever _tell me what potions this thing goes in."

"Kreacher won't," he promptly promised. He knew perfectly well she was stubborn enough that, if he did, she'd forever refuse to take any of those potions even if it killed her.

She turned back to her mother, closing the cupboard and starting to set the table. "What was I saying?"

"You were just pointing out that I am a healer, which I'm not anymore," Mia reminded her. "And even when I was, I usually dealt with spell damage, not magical diseases. I'd rather someone from that field took a look to make sure this is just a straightforward case. It looks like one but I don't want to take any chances."

"Doesn't make it much better for them, though, does it? I had a straightforward case and I distinctively remember wanting to scratch myself raw even though I was only four at the time," Izzy pointed out as she placed the plated on the table.

"Trust me, you could have had a lot worse," Mia assured her, turning around as she finished cooking. "Oh, I can finish that," she said, referring to the setting of the table. "Why don't you go upstairs and wake Harry and your father up?"

Izzy gave her mother a look. "You just don't want to deal with the complex process that is waking Harry James Potter before ten in the morning."

Mia sighed. "He's not that bad."

"No, he's worse," she replied, making her mother roll her eyes.

"Are you or aren't you doint it?"

Izzy huffed. "Alright. But, fair warning, if he's not up at the second try, I'm throwing a bucket of icy water on him," she promised before heading to the stairs.

Understandably, even though she reached the floor of her parents' room first, she kept climbing up to the one above in order to get started on the getting-Harry-up mission. She knocked on the door first, just for the sake of not walking in on him getting dressed, something as embarrassing as it was unlikely since he'd never be up at that hour unless someone had already made him. When no answer came in, she barged unceremoniously only to find him pitifully sleeping on his stomach, one arm and a leg hanging off the bed.

Approaching it, she shook him a little. "Harry, get up," she said. He barely even moved, so she did it again. "Oi, didn't you hear me? Up!"

That time, he mumbled something unintelligible against the pillow but still didn't move an inch. It didn't surprise her – with him, it was a rude awakening or nothing.

Phase two, she thought, heading to the windows in order to open the curtains. He groaned at the light and absently pulled the pillow from under his head and used to shield himself from the light.

She huffed. "I'm going downstairs to wake up Dad. You'd better be up next time I come up here," she warned him before walking out. Hopefully, letting him stew under the morning light would convince him he might as well just get up.

Compared to log upstairs, her father was much easier to rise. Not five seconds after she'd knocked on the door, she was already hearing a muffled response from the other side sounding somewhat like 'come in'.

"'_s it morning already?_" she heard her father slur from the bed after she opened the door.

"Yeah, it's almost nine" Izzy replied. "What time did you go to sleep?"

"I dunno… fourish?" he mumbled. "Your sister just wouldn't go down. Are they any better this morning?"

"They're not worse. I'll let Mum tell you all about it," she said, wanting to spare herself from the long explanation about the Dragon Pox as she headed for the windows in order to open the curtains too.

She hadn't even touched the fabric and her father was already groaning. "Merlin, it feels like a hippogriff trampled my head," he said.

Izzy turned to him in the dark, vaguely seeing his outline sitting up on the bed. "Do you want me to keep the curtains closed, then?"

Her father groaned again. "Only if you want me to go back to sleep. Just do it."

She complied and heard him hiss as the light hit his eyes before she'd even turned around. Once she did, her eyes facing him directly, she froze. "Oh my god, Dad!" she nearly shouted.

"What?" he mumbled, confused. "What is it?"

"Don't get up," she said. "I'm calling Mum."

"What for?" he asked.

But she was already rushing for the hallway and shouting all the way down the well between the stairs for her mother to come. When she came back into the room, it was clear her father hadn't listened – he appeared to be standing in front of the long mirror in the room, staring at his reflection.

"I told you to stay in bed, Dad," Izzy reminded him.

He ignored her. "Why am I green?" he asked before turning to her with a slightly annoyed expression on his face as he scratched his arm. "You know I usually love a good prank, Izzybel, but this is just… unimaginative."

She huffed. "It's not a prank, Dad. You've got Dragon Pox."

He frowned. "I've got what?"

"Dragon Pox! That's what Alex and Mary have too. They must've given it to you."

Sirius snorted. "That's ridiculous – adults can't have Dragon Pox."

"Yes, they can. Everyone knows that! They can and almost always because they didn't get it as kids. Did _you_ ever get it when you were little?"

Sirius was silent for a while. "Are you sure it isn't a prank?"

"Dad!"

"But I feel fine!"

"You've just told me five minutes ago that you have one hell of a headache. And stop scratching yourself!" she said, swatting his hand away from his arm.

"Hey!" he complained.

"_What's wrong?_" they heard Mia's voice asking from outside the room just before she came in.

"_He _is," Izzy replied, pointing at her father, who frowned.

Mia stopped on her tracks the moment she laid eyes on her husband. "Please tell me there's something wrong with the lighting in this room."

"There isn't," her daughter replied.

She took a breath, covering her face with her hands for a moment before making her way to her husband and touching his forehead. "I think you have a fever. Doesn't seem very high, though. Do you have any other symptoms? Nausea, muscle pain…" she asked her husband.

"He's got a headache," Izzy replied before her father could even open his mouth. "And apparently, he's itching." She promptly swatted her father's hand away from his opposite upper arm, which he seemed to be scratching.

"Oi, quit it with that," he complained, narrowing his eyes at his daughter.

"And you quit it with the scratching," Mia warned him. "You'll cover yourself with scars!"

Her husband gave her a look. "I knew you'd only married me for my looks," he said, resentful.

Mia sighed. "Sirius, this is important. You're sick and, judging by how quickly the green rash appeared, it'll be no time before you're burning up. Do you feel cold?"

He shrugged. "It's December – it's always a bit chilly."

"Not in a magically heated room, it isn't," she replied. "You need to get into bed."

Sirius huffed but didn't fight her as she took his arm and guided him into the bed as if she was afraid he'd fall over. "You know, I usually like it when you say that but now you're just ruining it," he commented while she tucked him in.

"Merlin, Dad!" Izzy immediately hissed, completely mortified. "I don't want to hear that!"

"What?" he asked, completely unrepentant.

Izzy rolled her eyes. "How did you not catch Dragon Pox as a kid, anyway? Practically everyone does."

He shrugged. "I don't know. I just didn't. Neither did my brother, as far as I remember. I kind of figured we probably were just immune or something."

"Or you were just never really exposed to the disease," Mia pointed out. "I don't suppose your parents fancied having you taken to a playground, did they? Letting you play with other kids over there…"

"I'm sorry, are you referring to the Muggle-haters who raised me? Sure, they would have _loved _to have me frequenting a playground in a Muggle neighbourhood," he replied, his hoarse tone laced with sarcasm.

"Well, that explains it," she said with a sigh.

"Look, it's not that big a deal, is it? I mean, you've said so yourselves – practically everyone has it. It's not like people drop like flies because of Dragon Pox."

"Sirius, Dragon Pox is not that big a deal in _children. _It can be much more serious in adults. There can be… complications."

"What sort of complications?" he asked.

Mia sighed, turning to Izzy. "Go and see if Harry's up yet, would you?" she requested. "This might take a while."

Izzy got a feeling her mother was just trying to get her out of the room but went anyway, knowing a little search in the downstairs library was all it would take for her to learn about those possible 'complications'.

She was just about to reach the upper floor when she heard a loud outburst from her father.

"_It can do what to my what?! Merlin, what are we still doing here?! I need to get to a hospital this instant!"_

"_Sirius, calm down," _Mia quickly urged him.

"_Calm down?! You're not the one who might end up i…_" The door of the room closed with a bang, courtesy of her mother before Izzy could finish listening and, after a moment of thought, she felt thankful for that. Every word she could think of starting with a 'i' that her father might have spoken had the potential to scar her for life – ignorance was bliss, in that case, she was sure.

Upstairs, she found Harry just as asleep as before. The difference was that, that time, she didn't have the patience to follow the usual procedure. She just walked in and, praying he was decent under the covers, pulled every single blanket he had on top of him.

"_Go away_," he immediately mumbled against his pillow.

"Get up! Dad's got Dragon Pox," she unceremoniously declared.

That seemed to do the trick. In a fraction of a second, he had his face off the pillow and was starting to sit up. "He's got what?"

"Dragon Pox. So do Alex and Mary."

"You're joking."

"Sure, why not?" she said blandly. "I guess he could just be green because he's trying to change his animagus form into a lizard."

Harry looked at her for a moment, trying to figure out if she was joking or not. He thought not, immediately getting to his feet and walking past Izzy out of the room.

The door of her parent's room was open again downstairs, so, as Izzy followed, Harry went straight in.

"Bloody hell," he said, the moment he saw his godfather was, indeed, a very unflattering shade of green.

"Harry!" Mia scolded him as she took her husband's temperature, mindful of the younger boy's language.

"Sorry, Aunt Mia," he apologized before turning back to his godfather. "Are you alright?"

"'o, cudn' be wors'," he managed to say with the thermometer in his mouth.

"Sirius, don't speak while you have that in your mouth," his wife told him. "Do you want to add mercury poisoning to your list of problems right now?"

He pouted, leaning back against the headboard for about twenty more seconds, when his wife remover the thermometer and checked the temperature.

"I said I couldn't be worse," Sirius stated out loud, referring to his earlier response.

"Weren't you trying to play this down little more than five minutes ago?" Izzy asked, raising an eyebrow.

"That was before I was told this could mess with my…" Mia sharply cleared her throat and gave him a warning look before he could finish "… eyesight," he lamely amended. "It'd be a tragedy if I had to start wearing glasses over this."

"Hey! There's nothing wrong with glasses!" Harry protested. In fact, he was missing his own very much at the moment, feeling practically blind due to the fact that they'd been left on the nightstand upstairs. "Anyway, is there something I could do to help?"

"Yeah. You can get me into a hospital right now since your godmother is convinced I don't need to go to one!" Sirius said, turning to glare at his wife.

Mia huffed. "I've already told you, Sirius. It's not that you don't need medical attention, it's just that procedure in case of an infectious disease is to stay home to avoid it from spreading too much and get a house call from someone from the Magical Bugs and Diseases Unit, which I am just about to do."

"Oh, I can do that for you," Harry offered. "I've got a feeling they'll be here much faster if I'm the one asking." It was just one of those things that came along with being the 'Saviour of the Wizarding World' – he only needed to say the world 'help' and people would be racing each other to give him a hand at anything. Granted, that was a 'power' he didn't like to use, much less abuse, but if there was ever a time to do it in a justifiable way, it was now.

"Would you really?" Mia asked, sounding genuinely thankful. Harry gave a nod in return and, immediately, she turned to her husband. "There, you'll have a healer in no time. Now, can you please calm down for a few minutes? Your f… _eyesight_ is not going down the drain from one minute to another!"

"Just how certain are you of that?"

"Not as certain as I am that if you don't shut up about it right now you won't need your… _eyesight _at all with me ever again!"

Confused, Harry approached Izzy. "Is 'eyesight' supposed to be code for something?" he whispered to Izzy.

"Probably," she replied before giving him a warning look. "But don't you dare ask _what_."

* * *

"I don't get it."

George sighed, putting the piece of parchment containing the mail order he was trying to fulfil and throwing a box of Canary Creams into a shopping basket. "What don't you get, Lee?" he asked his friend.

"The whole _thing_. How do you go from being a permanent grouch to being… you-ish again in a matter of days?" Lee Jordan questioned him.

"Christmas miracle," George replied dryly. Lee had been going on about it for about ten minutes, which didn't particularly surprise George. Sure, he'd already been less jerk-y on Christmas Eve morning, but they'd all been far too busy with the shop for the issue to be brought up. Lee wasn't one to keep questions to himself, though, so naturally, first chance he had, he was asking questions.

"Christmas miracle my arse," the dark-skinned boy replied. "Is it a Dickens kind of thing?"

"A what? What the hell is a 'Dickens'?"

"Not a 'what'. A 'who' – he was some Muggle writer from Victorian times who wrote this book about an old grouch who got visited by ghosts on Christmas that made him rethink his life." George raised his eyebrows at him. "Don't give me that look! You know my mother teaches Literature at Oxford. This kind of stuff was what she told me and Eff as bedtime stories when we were kids – she thought fairy tales were too 'simplistic'."

"Your mother told you ghost stories at bedtime?" George asked sceptically. It was the first time he was hearing it.

"Pff, that's not even the worst of it. She read us her entire Phd thesis on 'Jude the Obscure' too – trust me, that's not something you want to be read to when you're five." Thoughtful, he let out a sigh. "No wonder my sister turned out such a nutjob."

In normal circumstances, George might've pointed out that Lee was a bit of a nutjob himself but, knowing Lee's sister far better than he'd like to, he refrained himself from doing it, seeing as there was no comparison between their respective levels of craziness.

"Anyway," Lee said, "Is that it? A Dickens type of thing or not?"

"Well, I didn't receive a visit from the beyond, if that's what you're asking," the redhead assured him, picking up the basket and moving on to the display containing the Skiving Snackboxes.

"What, then?" Lee asked, pausing for a moment. "Wait, are you dying?"

George gave him a look as he dumped a box of Fever Fancies into the basket. "_No!_"

"Is someone else dying? Is it me?"

"No one is dying, Lee!" George assured him. "Not that I'm aware of, anyway." He moved on to the counter, Lee following behind him, and placed the basket in front of Verity. "Do you think you can wrap these up for me so I can mail them later?" he asked the cashier.

"Sure," she immediately agreed, since there wasn't a single costumer in the shop at that moment. It was still early but, Merlin, was it a relief not to have the place crowded like the inside of an egg like it had been two days before.

"Just quit dancing around the matter and tell me what on earth caused this epiphany of yours, George," Lee impatiently demanded.

"What does it matter what caused it? I'm fine – if I wasn't, I'd have already kicked you out for being such a pest."

"It's just weird, okay? One moment, I have a funny best friend, then I've got a grouchy best friend, now I've got middle range one… Send a bloke a warning, would you?" he said, before turning to Verity as she worked on wrapping the boxes. "Veri, tell him you think he's being weird too."

"No," she refused without looking up.

"Why not?"

"Because he's my boss and he pays my salary."

"So? I'm your boyfriend and I warm your bed at night."

"I wouldn't have a bed if he didn't pay my salary," she pointed out.

"And now you can get yourself a second bed and kick him out of yours because you're getting a raise," George informed her.

"Hey, that's not fair!" Lee protested.

"Sounds fair to me," Verity commented.

"I don't mean the raise – I mean the secrecy," the former Hogwarts Quidditch-Commenter argued before looking directly at George. "I've been here for you, mate. For months. And I want to know what it was that was done to get you better that _I _didn't do."

George sighed and, faithful to his change, decided to throw his friend a bone. "You didn't tear me a new one. Verbally."

"What?!"

"Yeah."

"That's it? So, if I'd verbally wiped the floor with you, it would have worked?"

"Probably not," George said, turning around and leaning with his back against the counter, facing the outside windows. "It required a very specific set of circumstances. It's hard to explain."

And, coincidence or not _just_ as he said so, he spotted said 'specific set of circumstances' (or the girl who embodied most of those circumstances, one Isabelle Kathleen Black) passing just outside the window and apparently dashing into the apothecary, appearing in quite a hurry as she did so. He raised an eyebrow, wondering what that was all about.

"I've got to go," he announced suddenly, to his friend's confusion.

"Go where?" Lee asked.

"To the apothecary," he answered without thinking, already heading to the door. "And before you ask," he added, a thought just occurring to him, "no, Lee, I'm not going there to spend all my gold in potions that I'm hooked to either." It wouldn't surprise him if that was the next shady thing Lee would accuse him of.

"That's what people who are hooked to potions always say," Lee argued.

George's only response was walking out the door and shutting it firmly behind him, ignoring his friend.

The whole alley was only scarcely populated, which was incredibly refreshing after all the Christmas rush. It was ridiculously cold, which was more of a problem over the fact that he'd left his cloak inside the shop – he didn't bother going back, though, knowing Lee would only use it as an opportunity to annoy him further. It was only a few yard's walk to the apothecary, anyway.

Even before he went in, he spotted Izzy at the counter through the glass door, chatting away with the shop assistant who – to George's complete surprise – seemed to be Neville Longbottom. He pushed the door in, moving away from the cold, and walked straight into the middle of a conversation

"…heard he was back. So, how's he like? You know, _dead_," Neville was saying, to George's complete confusion. "Is he as… _you know_?"

"You mean as nasty as he was back when he was alive? Definitely – that much hasn't changed," Izzy informed him. "I don't have him for classes but Ginny says he's as much of a nightmare in them as he was before and that the worst part is that she can't fantasise about killing him with her bare hands anymore because… well, he's already dead."

Neville sighed. "That's just sad," he stated before turning to George. "Hey, George," he greeted him, causing Izzy to turn around, her lips curling as she saw him. "How are you doing?"

"Fine, thanks. I didn't know you worked here," he admitted, which ought to be the lamest thing in the world, given the shop in question was right across the street from his. Merlin, had he been living under a rock lately?

"Yeah, I've been here for a few months," Neville said jovially. "Don't get used to the idea, though. I was just telling Izzy here that Professor Sprout invited me to assist her in her teaching at Hogwarts, sort of as a trainee. I'm starting at the beginning of the term."

"That's brilliant. Why didn't she call you up at the beginning of the term, though?" George asked.

Neville nodded. "She probably heard that I was dabbling with the possibility of becoming an auror," he said. "I got an invitation sort of like the one Harry, Hermione and Ron. I tried, but it didn't work out."

"I wouldn't put it that way – Harry said you were doing pretty well," Izzy pointed out.

The other boy shrugged. "I guess I was, but it didn't feel… right, you know? It just wasn't the thing for me. I talked it over with Gran and she said there was no point in doing it if it wasn't something that made me happy. I guess she was happy just with the fact that it was possible I could do it."

"Of course she was. And she's got a point," Izzy said. "You always did have a knack for Herbology, didn't you?"

Neville nodded, smiling. "It's kind of why I ended up here. Loads of plants. Speaking of which, I've got to get most of this stuff from the back room," he said, picking up a list that Izzy had presumably given to him. "Oh, is there something you wanted?" he suddenly asked George, recalling he might be there as a costumer rather than as a friend.

He shook his head. "I was just passing by," he said.

"Alright. Well, I'll get these things for you, then," he told Izzy before disappearing into the backroom

"So, Isabelle," George started, leaning against the counter. "Starting the day with some errands?"

"Yeah. How did you know I was here?"

"I saw you from the shop," he pointed out, pointing at the window with his thumb. "You seemed like you were in a hurry."

"Of course I was in a hurry," she said. "It's bloody Siberia out there. Speaking of which," she added, giving him a frown, "what are you doing here without a coat on? Are you trying to get sick too?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, _Mum._ I forgot it at home. And why do you look so much like Isabelle Black?" That won him a half-hearted smack on the arm, which he easily laughed off. "Oh, come on, you were just _asking_ for that to be said," he argued.

Izzy rolled her eyes. "I guess I was. Forgive me for being more sensitive than usual to sickness. I have plenty of it back home."

"Really?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

She nodded. "Remember how my brother was a bit under the weather on Christmas Eve?" she asked, receiving a nod in return. "Turns out that was the beginnings of a bout of Dragon Pox."

"Dragon Pox? That's a fun one," he said sarcastically, knowing from experience just how annoying that was.

"It _is_ a fun one," Izzy said. "In fact, it's so much fun that both my sister and my father just couldn't wait to join in."

"Wait, your father?" George asked, surprised. "Sirius's got Dragon Pox?"

"Oh, yes he does. And he's currently greener than a Slytherin flag, which would be funny, weren't be being so whiny about it," she informed him.

"But, really, is he okay? Are all of them okay?" George asked in all seriousness.

"They're fine. There was just a healer there and, though he told us to keep a close eye on them, especially on Dad since Dragon pox can be more unpredictable on adults, he said that at the moment there's no reason for him to believe that's anything more than a straightforward case of the disease. He's coming back later, though, and wrote down a boatload of stuff for them to take, which is basically why I'm here."

"But that thing with your Dad: didn't he ever catch Dragon Pox as a kid or is it one of those cases when he got it and now has it again? I heard those were pretty rare."

"He never got it," Izzy told him. "Apparently, he just assumed he was immune. Honestly…"

"People _can_ be immune to Dragon Pox. And I mean, _actually_ immune, not just lucky or unlucky enough not to catch it," George pointed out.

Izzy raised an eyebrow. "They can?"

He nodded. "Fred was."

Her eyes widened in surprise upon hearing that. Not because the fact that Fred himself was immune was surprising on its own (well, it kind of was, but that wasn't the point) but because of how easily George had mentioned his late twin without even flinching. She didn't say a word and so George spoke instead.

"When I was about six, there was a big Dragon Pox epidemic back home. I caught it, Ron caught it, Ginny caught it… I think even Percy caught it. But Fred… there wasn't a single inch of green on him – it was unbelievable."

"So he didn't catch it," she asked. His openness about it was starting to make her comfortable – Fred wasn't a forbidden subject, she knew, and he was making it clear by speaking about it. "At all?"

George shook his head. "As you know, the two of us did everything together back then," he said. That time, there was some nostalgia in his tone, like he desperately wanted such a fact to remain but also knew that, ever since May, it would forever be a thing of the past. "So when I realized I was going to have to get through Dragon Pox and he'd just get to sit around happy as a clam rather than sharing my misery, I was pissed. I don't think I said a word to him for two days."

"Really?" Izzy asked, sceptically. It was impossible to picture Fred and George at odds.

"Yeah – you've got to see that, in my mind, that was the ultimate betrayal, Isabelle," he explained. "But then I ended up forgiving him, obviously: he did try very hard to catch Dragon Pox too – wouldn't leave our side for anything, even when I was giving him the cold shoulder. In the end, the healer looking after us found it odd that he just wouldn't get sick too and got him tested and it turned out that he really was immune, which was ridiculously rare for someone that hadn't taken a vaccine."

"Oh, well, pity my Dad never took one of those either," Izzy said. "Would've saved me a lot of trauma."

"Merlin, Isabelle, seeing your father coloured green is hardly traumatizing," George assured her.

"No, but hearing the stuff he has to say is. I think the fever is loosening his tongue far too much," she pointed out. "He either bickers with my mum about his 'eyesight', which I'm pretty sure is not actually his eyesight but rather something I really don't want to know about, or he flirts with her. _Shamelessly_. It was embarrassing just being in the house when that happened, you know? Harry actually ran – the little bastard was supposed to just go downstairs and floo St Mungo's to use his 'Chosen One' charms to get a healer in the house and instead he decided to go there on person because – I quote – 'People might doubt it was actually me over the floo'. That didn't turn out so well for him in the end, though, seeing as he ran straight into Rita Skeeter there."

George raised an eyebrow. "Rita Skeeter hangs around hospitals now? Is she that desperate for news?"

"I think she was there as a patient. Harry did mention her repeatedly puking into a bucket… but that still didn't stop her from hounding him for information on why he was there," Izzy pointed out just as Neville came back from the back room, carrying far more vials, jars and containers than it seemed safe.

Miraculously, maybe, said vials, jars and containers reached the counter safely and, after the goods were bagged and Izzy paid for them, they said their goodbyes to Neville (who was already busy eagerly attending to Hannah Abbot, who'd walked into the shop just seconds before) and headed for the door.

"Come on," George told her as he relieved her of one of the bags and held the door open for her. "You can take the floo home from my place. It's closer by than the Leaky."

They crossed the chilling street, which seemed to have slightly more heavily-cloaked people than before when he'd gone into the Apothecary, and made their way into the far more comfortable shop across the street. He quickly spotted Ron, who'd been absent when he'd left, by a display talking to some costumers and, while Verity still remained at the counter, Lee appeared to be missing (thankfully, George added in his mind).

"Hey, where did Lee go?" he asked the shop assistant as he and passed the counter.

"He was starting to get annoying, so I sent him into the store room to get some Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder," the blonde said without looking at him.

"Didn't I tell you just an hour ago that we were out of that?" George asked.

"Oh, yeah. My bad," she said, not sounding very sorry about it. When she looked up from what she was doing, she didn't seem it either. "Do you want me to let him know?" she asked tartly, as if daring him to go through another round of questions.

George saw through it and, recognizing the mastery of the move, went along with it. "Maybe around lunch-time if he lasts that long," he said, causing Izzy to raise an eyebrow by his side. "What? He managed to annoy his own girlfriend – it's not my place to tell her how to manage him."

She felt tempted to ask how he would feel if she sent him on a goose chase because he'd annoyed her but then decided against it once she realized that basically involved classing herself as his girlfriend… sort of. It might just be a little too soon to go there, after all.

"Alright, we're going upstairs so Isabelle here can take the floo home," he told blonde. "Just shout if I'm needed down here."

With that, he made his way to the door leading to the back of the shop and started climbing up the stairs, Izzy following shortly behind.

"_George, is that you_?" they heard Remus Lupin's familiar voice asking from his office, which was located one floor belong the entrance to George's flat. "_I've got some bank paperwork here for you to sign. I need to deliver it by the end of the…_" He stopped talking just as he exited the office and found George standing on the stairs with Izzy. "Izzy, I didn't know you were here."

"I was actually just going home," she said. "George is letting me use his fireplace."

Remus nodded. "Listen, Dora and I got your mother's patronus just before I came here. So your father, Alex and Mary have Dragon Pox, then?"

"Yeah. They're fine at the moment, though. Dad's just extra annoying. You should probably brace yourselves for Teddy to follow suit – he played with Mary at Christmas, didn't he?"

He nodded. "It's alright. I'm actually hoping he'll catch it now, for his own good. I got it just two months before going to Hogwarts and, trust me, I'd rather it had happened at an age when I wouldn't remember it."

Considering that was said by a werewolf who went through excruciating transformations every month, George and Izzy could only imagine how bad his case has been.

"I'll have that paperwork ready for when you come back down," he told George, who simply nodded. Then, he looked back at Izzy. "Let your mother know I'll try to drop by later for a visit, would you? It's only fair I take some of your father's whininess myself since he faithfully handles mine every full moon."

Izzy couldn't possibly think of a less whiny person than her father's best friend but she didn't care to mention it out loud – if he wanted to have his go at her mother's fever-induced annoyance, then who was she to stop him?

As Remus went back into his office, Izzy and George resumed climbing up the stairs, that time only stopping in front of George's door – the door, Izzy recalled, she'd spent ten minutes banging on just a few days before. And, now, the door he was willingly opening to her. It made her want to strangle him and kiss him all at once – how deeply things could change in just a matter of days…

The place was a bit messier than the other day, Izzy noted as she stepped in, but she took that as a good sign – it reflected the fact that somebody actually lived in there, not just hang around apathetically like before. There was a pile of bags next to the sofa she imagined must be Christmas Presents and Care packages Molly had sent along from the Burrow and a pile of clothes on the back of a chair probably waiting for laundry day. But, of course, what caught her attention the most, was the little tower of neatly folded parchment sitting on the side table by the sofa – she knew instantly what it was. Her letters.

"I've finished reading them," George told her, noticing where her attention had gone.

She turned to him, her lips curling a little. "How many did it take for you to get fed up?" she asked in a self-deprecating manner.

"I didn't get fed-up," he told her immediately, like he was defending her from herself. He placed the bag containing her purchases that he was carrying on the floor and she did the same with the one she was in charge of, just noticing it was getting a bit heavy. "I like the way you write – it makes me want to laugh at the smallest things. You could probably make yourself a few galleons if you had those published in a book." He wasn't the kind of person who spent all their time reading but he'd still read every single one of her letters at least twice.

She made a face. "I'd rather keep it between us," she said. Writing professionally was not something she thought she had the discipline or organization to do.

"If you say so… But I'll have you know that the 'plot' was so… convoluted (and I mean this in the best of ways) that I have a few questions myself," he informed her.

"Well, ask away," she urged him.

His lips curled. "By 'a few' questions, I actually meant a boatload of them. It'd probably take hours for you to answer them all and I don't think you'd want your father and siblings to waste away waiting for these potions you've just gotten while you sit here showering me with answers."

He was actually right about that and Izzy was thankful he'd been thoughtful enough to consider that. "Well, I'll tell you what: ask one question now, at least. Now you got me curious."

"Alright, then. I guess I'll start with the most vital question, which is… _Looser's Lurgy_? Really?"

She snorted, recognizing her own mention of Zacharias Smith's bout of disease. "I did not make that up!"

"You're telling me some disease researcher actually thought one day to name one of his discoveries 'Loser's Lurgy'? As in '_let's call the poor sods who get this losers and add to the insult by saying it's a kind of lurgy, which usually means it's a made-up disease_'. I'll admit that's something _I_ would do, but I doubt a professional would."

"Okay, just so you know, it's an illness exclusive to the tropics that Smith caught while he was on vacation. The actual name of it is in a dialect whose name I can't even pronounce. I'll admit that the 'lurgy' part maybe have been lost in translation but the 'Loser' one it right letter by letter – apparently, catching it is a bad omen."

"That one will be a loser all their life?"

"Probably. Would it really surprise you, considering it's Zacharias Smith who's got it?"

George paused for a moment. "Not really, no," he admitted. "Any interesting symptoms to it? You didn't mention any."

"We didn't see much of him while he was ill – he was at the hospital most of the time. Rumour has it that it involved balloon-like swelling up, psychosis and loud singing. Honestly, I think it's probably exaggerated – we'd have heard it from the papers if every window in the main hospital in the country had cracked at the same time," she joked, relishing at the moment she saw a look of amusement on his face. "So, I guess that's one question answered."

"One of…" he paused, trying to count them "…several."

"It might be a good idea for you to note them down for next time," she suggested. "Not as good an idea as it would have been to have read the letters when they arrived and reply to them with those questions like it's customary, but well…"

He groaned. "I'm never going to hear the end of that, am I?"

"Mentions may grow tamer and farther apart with time," she offered. "You are sorry about it, after all."

"I am. I really am," he assured her. "In fact, related to that, there's something I've been meaning to give you."

"'Give' me? Like a present? As in a Christmas present? Because I don't have anything for you in return," she told him, alarmed as he started making his way towards his bedroom in order to pick up whatever he was referring to.

"It's not a present, Isabelle," he assured her, pausing for a moment. "This is more like me giving something back – something that was yours in the first place. Just wait here a moment – you'll see what I mean."

She watched him leave the room, her mind clouded with confusion. What on Earth was he on about? What could he possibly have in his possession that had belonged to her in the first place? She just couldn't recall ever giving him something of hers to hold.

But then, he exited the room with the object in question in his hands and, suddenly, it hit her. The papyrus. The scroll of papyrus they'd used to communicate back when Hogwarts was ruled over by Death Eaters – it was connected to another one in George's possession and whatever she wrote in hers, he could see in his. The memories it brought along were infinite.

"I figured we'd be probably making a good deed by giving those poor owls at Hogwarts a rest," George said, approaching her. "Weekly flights to London and back all the way from the Highlands has got to be brutal, especially with this weather." He extended the scroll to her with a smile. "It's yours."

She stared at it in silence for a few seconds. "George…" she started "…that's not giving something back."

He raised an eyebrow. "It isn't?" he asked.

"No! 'Giving it back' implies that it was mine before, which it never was," she told him. "I borrowed it from Ginny, who you lent it to so she could communicate home. It was yours. Yours and Fred's."

"Isabelle…"

"I can't take something that was yours and _Fred's_," she declared.

He sighed. "The _other one_ was mine and Fred's. This one didn't belong to either of us for a very long time. It was yours from the moment you first wrote to me on it." He paused for a moment, as if waiting for her to argue, but she was just silent. "Isabelle, these scrolls have no point at all if they're shoved together in a drawer. None. For one to work, the other has to be with another person. I want you to be that person, so I want you to have it. Permanently, not just in a temporary fashion."

She kept looking at him in silence for several seconds. "I don't know what to say."

"Say you'll take it," he requested. "If not because I'm asking you, then for the sake of those owls you're enslaving."

He promptly thrust the scroll further her way and, tentatively, she reached to touch it. The real weight of the gesture, just how much it meant to her, didn't hit her until she had her hand wrapped around the scroll and George let go of his end – at that moment, before she could stop herself, she practically launched herself at him in a bone-crushing hug.

If he was in any way uncomfortable about the gesture, he didn't show it – he held her just about as closely as she held him and never appeared inclined to push her away. She closed her eyes, her head just barely resting on his shoulder as she stood on tip-toes due to the height-difference. She'd missed him so much after he'd been gone for so long… but now he was back. He was back and it never ceased to amaze her just how 'back' he was. She could already see glimpses (glimpses that were slowly becoming full-on sights) of those best parts of him she loved him for, that one being one of them. "Thank you," she whispered against his ear.

She felt him shaking his head. "No. Thank _you," _he said before they pulled back a few seconds later. "I hope you won't mind that I made a few changes to it."

She raised an eyebrow. "Changes?"

"It's mostly on my end," he told her. "Just a little… emergency mechanism. To protect us from myself."

"What do you mean 'protect us for yourself'?"

He sighed. "Look, I told you that I'm trying, Isabelle. I'm trying to be… me without the whole 'being a jerk to the people I care for' thing. And so far it's going well but you've been practically holding my hand all the way. What's to say that… I dunno, the moment you're miles away at Hogwarts all over again I won't start taking steps back?"

Izzy just looked at him for a few seconds. "You don't trust yourself yet, do you?"

"Not really, no," he admitted.

She nodded. "So, what does it do, then? The emergency system?"

"It keeps me from ignoring you when you write," he said. "It's basically an alarm that sounds whenever you write down this specific code-phrase – trust me, it's impossible to ignore. It won't shut up until I write something back. And before you point out that spells and hexes can almost always be broken by the person who cast them, I asked Ginny to do it for me yesterday just in case. She was more than eager to do so."

"I don't doubt she was," she said. "So, what's that code-phrase you were talking about?"

"Oh, it's written down on a piece of parchment I put in the scroll. But before you read it," he added, stopping her just as she started unrolling it, "I just want to stress the fact that part of the deal for Ginny to cast the spell for me involved her being the one picking the phrase to activate it, so the content of it is not my doing."

Izzy gave him a look before finishing unrolling the papyrus just until she found the piece of parchment tucked in the middle of it. Once she laid eyes on the words written in Ginny's unmistakable handwriting (which, infamously, made chicken scratch look more like calligraphy) she had no doubt George was telling the truth. "'George Weasley, I'm going to go there and bang your head against the wall repeatedly unless you answer me right now'," she read, raising an eyebrow. "Really? She couldn't make it any longer?"

"Oh, so you have problems with the length but not with the threat. That's nice, Isabelle," he told her, looking slightly annoyed.

She smiled. "Well, let's hope I don't have to use it often – I like to keep my promises, even when they're written using someone else's words."

"I'll keep that in mind," he assured her.

Pushing her sleeve up, she checked her watch for the time. She'd already been there far longer than she should have. "Well, I should get these potions home," she said, placing the scroll of papyrus in one of the bags she'd brought from the apothecary before picking both of them up.

George nodded. "Yeah… hey, before you go," he said, suddenly reminded of things, "did Ginny tell you about Bill's thing for New Year's?"

"New Year's?" she asked, confused.

"She probably hasn't had a chance yet, then. Anyway, Bill is holding this little New Year's get-together at his new place. They're making me go because apparently I'm in a probation period in which I cannot turn down invitations for any family function unless it's because I'm either dying or rushing to somebody's deathbed. I was just wondering if you were going too… I mean, if the disease outbreak over at your house is less hectic by then."

She thought of it… it wasn't like she had any plans for New Year's, anyway. "I suppose I could try, if that's the case," she told him with a smile. "I'll let you know later on the week."

He smiled too. "Well, you know where you can find me next time you have to make a potion-run," he told her.

"Yes, I do," she agreed before impulsively reaching forward and impulsively catching George by surprise by kissing him on the cheek. "Bye, George," she told him before heading to the fireplace and balancing all the bags in one hand to grab herself a handful of floo powder.

"Bye, Isabelle," he replied just as she disappeared in the midst of the flames.

* * *

She wished she could say the rest of the day was uneventful from then on.

Uneventfulness – even boredom – would certainly beat the utter ridiculousness that came over her and her family the moment the 'Evening Prophet' reached their home. Because, since the universe was so clearly on their side, _of course_ Harry's run into Rita Skeeter at St Mungo's hadn't turned out to be just an inconsequential anecdote…

Of one thing they couldn't accuse the woman: of not being hard-working. She must have spent her whole hospital stay concocting the ridiculous article and ran straight to the newpaper's bullpen, puke-bucket on a tow, the moment she was out in order to get it printed in the edition coming out just in a few hours.

The headline had, of course, been sensationalistic as ever – '_Family Drama for Harry Potter: Godfather Sirius Black's Life Hanging by a Thread due to Unknown Desease'_ – and the article went on to make up the most ridiculous details like funeral plans involving a Weird Sisters performance and the confirmed presences of dozens of famous people. Skeeter had even been able to (mis)quote Harry in it – apparently, he'd said something to her along the lines of not wanting to tell her anything because she'd just make it sound like his godfather was at Death's door, the first part of which she must have… 'misplaced'.

The most obvious result of the article, aside from the mandatory annoyance, had been the unstoppable flow of floo calls from other reporters wanting a comment and friends, family and acquaintances wanting to check if her father was, indeed, dying or not (even George had left her message on the papyrus wanting to make sure the article was, indeed, a sham). The first call – Molly – had come minutes after the paper had arrived, before they'd even had a chance to read it, and so far they hadn't stopped.

"It's your turn," she told Harry as she saw the flames change colour at the fireplace through the corner of her eye.

Harry frowned across the kitchen table, where they'd been sitting for the past hour playing wizard's chess. "How is it my turn? I took the last one!"

"And I took three calls in a row when you went to the loo ten minutes ago," she argued.

He groaned. "Why are we still taking calls, anyway? It's probably just another reporter."

"It could be the healer from St Mungo's. He said he'd come back later to check on the Green Squad upstairs," she replied. "Go on."

Harry huffed. "There had better be no comment from you if tomorrow I'm quoted in the paper telling reporters to 'piss off'," he warned her as he got up.

She chuckled. "I'm pretty sure Mum's the one you'll have to worry about if that happens," she told him, turning to the wall clock in order to check the time – half past ten at night.

Sighing, she got up from the table just as Harry dove his head into the green flames and walked away from the chess game – it was probably going to be left unfinished, as usual. She could use one hand to count the number of Chess matches the two of them had ever had the patience to finish_._

She walked over to the sink, intending to get herself a drink of water, and took a look at Kreacher, propped on a stool and leaning over a cauldron floating over one of the iron-cast stove's burners, carefully stirring a potion he was working on. He'd been on it all day – brewing stuff, mixing salves, getting something or other for her mother… what would they possibly do without him?

"Aren't you tired?" she asked him.

"House-elves never tired, Young Mistress," he told her.

She rolled her eyes. "Liar."

The house-elf ignored that. "Kreacher can keep eye on calls from now," he said without looking at her as she drank from her glass. "It's getting late for masters."

"It's getting late for everyone," she commented, looking pointedly at him. But she had to admit she _was_ getting tired and Kreacher showed no sign of wanting to sleep – ordering him to do so would only get him cranky… "Are you sure you can get away from that potion?"

"Kreacher almost done with it," he declared.

"What is that, anyway?" Izzy asked, nodding at the blue-coloured liquid in the cauldron. "Pepperup potion?"

The house-elf gave her a highly disapproving look. "Young Mistress should know Pepperup potion be orange," he said in a long-suffering tone. She didn't blame him for it. He'd tried – in vain – to tutor her in potion-making time and time again before she'd finally dropped the subject. It just wasn't her thing, she supposed.

"You know I don't take Potions as a subject anymore," she pointed out.

"Young Mistress should. Potions be very useful subject," he pointed out.

She knew he was right and she was aware she should be making a bigger effort about it, but she just couldn't stand it. "Good thing I live under the same roof as someone who is so well-versed about it, then," she told Kreacher, smiling at him.

The disapproving look remained. "Kreacher won't live forever," he reminded her.

_That_ had her frowning. "You will if I have a say about it," she replied, narrowing her eyes at him before looking away at Harry, gesturing away with his hands as he spoke. He seemed to be far too interested in the conversation for it to be some reporter. "Alright, I suppose you could tell him to go to bed after he's done with that call. But don't take more calls after the healer asks to be let in," she told the house-elf. "People can wait for the morning to hear that the reports of my father's impending death are highly exaggerated."

"Kreacher won't," he promised.

"Good. A good night of sleep is the first step for you to start working on that immortality of yours."

Leaving a rather exasperated house-elf behind, Izzy left the room and started making her way up the stairs, headed to bed. Passing by her parents' room, however, she saw a light inside through the crack between the door and the jamb and couldn't resist making a stop there.

She knocked on the wooden surface and her mother's voice came from inside, urging her to go in. She found her mother lounging on the sofa at the foot of the bed, covered with a blanket and holding a roll of parchment she appeared to have been reading from – grading essays, Izzy guessed. On the bed itself, her father lay in a feverish stupor under the blankets, the green hue of his skin matching the one of the two sleeping children lying under each of his arms.

"How are they doing?" she asked, referring to the green individuals in the bed.

"They're well, all things considered," her mother said, putting the parchment and her quill down and sitting straighter on the sofa. "They're still running a fever but it wasn't too high last time I checked. It's to be expected." Despite her words, she pushed the blanket aside and got up from the sofa – clearly, her intention as she approached the bed was to check on their condition again.

Izzy nodded. "Quite the Christmas present we got," she observed, looking at her sleeping father and siblings. At that moment, they seemed the most comfortable she'd seen them all day.

Mia sighed, softly touching all of their foreheads to see if their felt warmer to the touch than before. "It was bound to happen at some point to your brother and sister. Your father, however…" She paused at him, softly brushing the sweaty hair on his forehead away from his face. "At least he's enjoying the ensuing dramatics."

He really, _really_ was, mad as it sounded. At some point after the article had arrived, her mother gave him an extra-strong dose of pepperup potion that had made him seem almost normal for a couple of hours – lizard-like appearance notwithstanding – and somehow gotten a hold of the newspaper. He'd _loved_ it.

In fact, he'd loved it so much that he'd been milking the damn article for all it was worth ever since he'd first laid eyes on it. Sentences such as 'Are you really going to deny a dying man this?' or 'Won't you do that for your dying father/husband/godfather/best friend?' had been wildly used, not to mention that a long list of 'last requests' had been made: those ranged from asking her mother never to remarry a bloke that was younger, handsomer, funnier, better at pranking or at Quidditch than him to casually pointing out to Izzy that it wouldn't be a bad idea for her to join a nunnery in his memory. She'd politely told him the Dragon Pox was messing with his brains.

"Has he come up with anything new while we were downstairs?" she asked her mother as she watched her tuck the blankets closer around Sirius and the children.

"He was mostly asleep, though he did make a comment about us needing to lock-up your sister in a tower if he's not around to keep boys away from her," Mia said, looking up with a smile of amusement.

"Typical… funny how he never says something of that sort about Harry or Alex," Izzy commented, unimpressed.

Mia didn't reply to that. She turned back to the ailing people commandeering her bed and reached to caress each of their heads before walking away, back to the sofa.

"Are you planning on sleeping there all night?" Izzy asked, nodding at the sofa. "There are plenty of empty beds in the house, you know?"

"I know. But I want to stay close," Mia said, tucking her legs under herself on the sofa and patting the empty seat next to her, inviting Izzy to join her. She did so, picking up the blanket and giving it to her mother, who used it to cover them both. "So, are people still calling?"

Izzy nodded. "Yeah. It's fewer now but they're still calling. It's mostly reporters. Kreacher says he'll keep an eye on it from now on – just until the healer comes back for a follow-up."

Mia gave her a nod. "It's been a hectic day for everyone in this house, I'd say. We haven't even had the chance to talk much in the past couple of days, have we?" she asked, a smile crossing her face. "I've got a feeling there's a lot for us to talk about."

"Are you referring to something in specific?" Izzy asked.

Mia raised an eyebrow. "You tell me. It seems I've seen more smiles on your face in the past two days than in the past six months. Something tells me it may be related to a certain surprising presence in the Weasley Christmas dinner."

Izzy's lips started to curl however she stopped herself, turning to her father's sleeping form once she recalled his presence in the room.

"Oh, don't worry. He's done for it for the next few hours," Mia assured her. She pointed at a large tome resting on the floor. "I dropped that book ten minutes ago and he didn't even flinch – none of them did. I had to go check if they were still breathing and everything. You're safe. So, am I wrong?"

Izzy shook her head. "I missed him. A lot," she admitted.

"How is he? Really," her mother asked.

"He's… healing. He sounds more like himself every time I talk to him," she told her. "He needed a shake-up to start snapping out of it."

"And you gave it to him?"

Izzy nodded. "We fought. It got worse before it got better. But then…"

"But then 'better' kept on getting better and turned out to be worth the 'worse', didn't it?" Mia guessed.

Her daughter smiled. "Something like that," she replied. "But we're not… dating," she had to specify. "I… it's too soon… which is kind of ironic because a few months ago I thought it was long overdue."

"Circumstances change," her mother said. "And have faith that if it's meant to happen, it _will _happen _when_ it's meant to happen. I have a feeling it will."

Izzy nodded, just as a snore sounded on the background, courtesy of her father. "He's going to hate it, isn't he?" she said.

Mia didn't need to ask who her daughter was referring to – clearly, it was her dear green-tinted husband. "He's always going to hate anything that threatens to take you away from him, either it's a boy or a job," her mother said in all honesty. "You were his first baby and he didn't even get to hold you when you were born. He's lost so much time with you during his Azkaban years that every second he has with you now is precious and letting you grow up is hard."

Izzy understood, even though it was easy not to consider it. Her father was such a big part of her life these days that it felt like he'd been around forever. But he hadn't. Even if it was easier to push aside, there still was a big hole haunting the first twelve years of her life, which was bound to be just as big for him. She couldn't erase it, though. And she couldn't pause her life to make up for lost time – he had to know that. "I have dated before," Izzy argued.

Her mother raised her eyebrows at her daughter's notion of dating. She vaguely recalled said dating and it solely involved a few months spending time with Terry Boot and, after she was done with him, two or three Hogsmeade visits escorted by a boy, never the same one twice. Sirius had made a bit of a fuss at first but quickly realized that the boys in question meant little more to Izzy than the dozens of dates he'd had before making a move on Mia had meant to him. George, however, was a different matter. "But you've never been in love before," Mia replied.

Izzy bit her lip. "It's not like I'm going to pack up and leave the day after we get together. _If _it ever happens." She wanted it to happen – she desperately did. But she didn't want to talk about it like it was a sure thing – what if that jinxed it?

"I know. I'm just saying that this time your heart is in it and, once your father realizes that, part of him will be sad, just as another part will be happy for you. It happens with every parent," her mother stated.

"Including you?"

"Including me," Mia confirmed with a little smile. "Still, you'll have a point in your favour when it comes to your Dad."

"What?"

"He likes George," she informed her. "Respects him, even, as a fellow prankster who managed to make a business out of said prankster tendencies and as a good person, who gave his best friend a chance to make an honest living regardless of what he turned into on full moons. I'd say that gives you a bit of an advantage."

Izzy was thoughtful for a few moments. "I'd never thought of it like that," she admitted after some time. "Thanks, Mum."

"You're welcome. Now, off to bed with you," Mia urged her, reaching forward to kiss her on the forehead and getting up. "You'll need your sleep. It's been a long day and I have a feeling that tomorrow might just be an even longer one."

"What makes you said that?"

Mia sighed. "You saw how insufferable your father managed to be during those two hours he was awake after we got the newspaper saying he was 'dying'," she said, making a point of making quotation marks as she did so. "Imagine how tomorrow will be like when he has that trick up his sleeve all day."

Izzy went even further. "Imagine if they report him _dead,_" she said, immediately reaching for the nearest table in order to knock on wood.

For several seconds, mother and daughter just stared at each other, looks of horror on their faces. He was never going to shut up if that happened – both of them were certain of that.

Then, Mia was the one to break the silence, saying something Izzy thought she'd never hear her mother say. "How easy do you think it would be to slip a strong dose of sleeping potion into his tea?"

**A/N: I'd say things are slowly getting warmer, don't you think? I hope you liked the chapter. Feedback is always very welcome! Review!**


	7. Affection

**A/N: I was starting to think I'd never manage to get this chapter out… I apologize to everyone waiting. I got your e-mails and tried to respond but things have been a bit… broken. Literally. As in, I went to Scotland on holiday three weeks ago, fell two days after I got there, broke my ankle in two places and had to get surgery to reset it. Not one holiday I'm about to forget, though I suppose I did get to know Glasgow Royal Infirmary in a way most tourists can't… Anyway, between hospital stays, delayed return trips and painkiller-induced stupors, I only managed to get this done now, so enjoy!**

**31 December 1998**

As she stood in front of the mirror trying to tame a loose strand of hair that stubbornly refused to stop sticking out (her own fault – hair drying spells existed for some reason, even if she never had the patience to use them), Izzy Black couldn't help reflecting about the nearly-past year. It sure had been an eventful one by anyone's standards: war, fear, death, destruction… and then victory, but still a fair amount of destruction that took its time to vanish. Yep, it had been some year and she sure was glad it was just hours away from being over – one could only take so much of the endless roller-coaster that it had been.

One year before, she recalled, there had been no celebration, no special gathering to mark the end of an year and welcome another one – only dread that, the more hours passed, the closer she and her mother would be to going back to a Hogwarts that seemed like something out of a nightmare. But now… now everything was different, brighter, happier. The whole Wizarding World seemed eager to welcome the new year as the first one free of Voldemort's shadow in a long time and they were planning to do it in style, if the cardboard box full of party invitations (ranging from house parties to really fancy ones sponsored by the Ministry and the Daily Prophet) that Harry had in his room was any indication.

Of course, fancy parties full of strangers was not something Harry fancied for himself and, faithful to that, he'd declined every single invitation, except for the one he was interested in: the Weasleys'. Which, not so coincidently, was also the one Izzy was currently headed to… if her stupid hair decided to cooperate. "Oh, dang it," she mumbled, grabbing an elastic and just making herself a ponytail. "There."

Grabbing herself a winter scarf and a hat, she made her way to the door and stalked down the stairs, vaguely hearing her mother scolding her baby sister in the bathroom of the floor below for throwing water everywhere during her bath. She decided against heading there to say goodbye, unwilling to get herself wet from head to toe right before she was to leave, and kept going down until she reached the first floor and made a detour to the living room. There, she unsurprisingly found her father sitting on the sofa with a blanket thrown over him as he watched the telly, having been allowed out of bed for the special occasion.

He wasn't having a very good week, Izzy knew. For starters, while his youngest children had been practically cured from their bout of Dragon Pox after a few days, the only reminder of the disease having ever hit them being their fading green rashes, Sirius was just barely starting recover (which was to be expected, really, since Dragon Pox usually hit adults harder than children). Then, the Full Moon had come and he'd still been too ill to spend it helping his best friend getting through it like he always prided himself of doing. And, as if that wasn't enough, his condition, once deemed deadly by the papers, which had offered him plenty of laughing material for the first few days, had been quickly eclipsed by the news that that Celestina Warbeck was expecting her first child with an undisclosed man, something that seemed to catch every headline in every paper in the country. Safe to say, all the material he'd pre-emptively prepared for the eventuality of being mistakenly declared dead by some newspaper had gone down the toilet, much to his own chagrin and his family's relief. A crappy week indeed, Izzy reflected. But then again, at least he wouldn't spend New Year's alone in his misery.

It had been her mother's idea – a pretty good one at that – that, even though neither Sirius, due to his Dragon Pox, not Remus, due to the previous night's full moon, would be able to enjoy a traditional New Year's bash, they might as well spend it together anyhow. True, Remus might not offer that great a company, seeing as he was so drained he was currently dozing on the armchair he was sitting on, but at least Tonks and Teddy certainly made up for that (a bizarre fact for the latter, who was probably the most ridiculously cheerful Dragon-Pox ridden child she'd ever seen in her life, giggling all over the place as he played with Alex while coloured bright green from head to toe).

She cleared her throat as she made her way further into the room, causing both her father and Tonks to look away from the telly, turning to her instead. "Hey, I'm going now, okay?"

"Alright, Izzybel. Be back by eleven," he told her.

Izzy frowned immediately but, before she could even protest, Tonks made herself heard. "You are _joking, _right? It's New Year's Eve – the whole point of going to a New Year's Eve party is to _be there_ at midnight when the New Year comes."

"Yeah, what she said!" Izzy agreed.

"Well, can't you make it a 'Pre New Year's party' instead and just come spend midnight here with all of us?" he asked.

Izzy huffed. "_Dad_! If you wanted me to spend midnight here with you why did you say I could go in the first place?! I offered to stay when Mum decided to invite them!"

"Yeah, Sirius, don't mess with the kid's plans on _our account,"_ Tonks said, trying to hide a smirk caused by the fact that she was perfectly aware that Sirius's curfew-worries were more related to being an overprotective arse than a gracious host. "I mean, I don't mind, Teddy just doesn't care either way and sleepy over there probably won't even be conscious most of the night."

Sirius narrowed his eyes at his cousin, knowing she was calling his bluff. "Fine. Let's make it one minute past midnight. That way, she still spends midnight over there."

"Oh, great! I get to wish everyone a Happy New Year all the way from the fireplace. That sounds lovely," Izzy spat.

Her father groaned. "Just out of curiosity, what hour would you think appropriate for you to arrive?"

"Well, considering I'm of age, going to a party that's practically only going to have people we consider family in it and that Harry's also going _without a pre-set curfew_, I might just say 'any hour' but since I know you're going to claim the 'my house, my rules' card, I guess I could live with two… three in the morning."

"Three in the morning?! Well, just go ahead and sleep there instead, why don't you? Half past midnight is my offer."

"You might as well make it even and go with one in the morning," Izzy pointed out.

Just entering the room with Mary on her hip, Mia cleared her throat. "Alright, what is going on in here?" she asked, placing her daughter down on the floor.

"Dad and I are negotiating curfew times," Izzy announced. "And he's being a real pain about it!"

"Hey, I am being nothing more than a concerned, _responsible_ father!" he argued, causing Tonks to snort by his side. He turned to her, raising his eyebrows. "Something to say?" he asked the metamorphagus as Mary scampered all the way onto his lap, dragging her favourite stuffed animal behind her by a leg.

"Nothing. You're just missing a few prefixes there…" the pink-haired auror mumbled.

Mia cleared her throat, circling the couch in order to take a seat by her green husband's side. "Alright, what's the matter with the curfew, after all? I thought this was a straight-forward thing: she goes with Harry, she comes back with him. You know he won't let her get into trouble. Besides, it's a Weasley celebration, not some wild teen party."

"A Weasley celebration _without _Molly or Arthur Weasley in it," Sirius pointed out. "They're stuck with that hag Molly calls an aunt for tonight, remember? Bloody woman just had to fall and break her hip two days before the end of the year! Anyway, since they're stuck looking after her while she recovers, somehow, the lack of adult supervision makes me feel less confident about this party."

"I'd say Bill, Fleur, Percy, George and the many other people over the age of twenty, with steady jobs and living on their own who are going to be there might disagree with your whole 'lack of adult supervision' assessment," Tonks pointed out.

"You forgot to mention Charlie too," Izzy pointed out.

"No, I didn't," the metamorphagus said with a snort. "He may have a steady job and live abroad but take dragons out of the equation and you'll realize that in all other areas that one's brain has been stuck at fourteen for years. Can't you just smell the puberty hormones whenever he's around?" she asked, causing Izzy to snort. "Anyway, I ran into Fleur over at Gringotts the other day and she told me it wasn't going to be a big bash, anyway. She and Bill are just experimenting a little with having people over: aside from the ones we know, I think there's only a few friends of theirs and Fleur's kid sister Gabrielle, who's staying over, coming by."

"See, Dad? Even a twelve-year-old is going! What's the worst that could happen if I stay there a bit late?"

Sirius pursed his lips for a moment, an expression Mary seemed to find funny, promptly throwing her stuffed toy in the air, standing up on his lap and poking his face with her finger. He managed to brush her hand away without more than a giggle from her part and, looking at his littlest girl, a hundred different possibilities of what could go wrong with a New Year's outing crossed his mind in a flash. Not, he added in his mind, that they were likely enough to happen for Mia and Tonks not to pick them apart and mock him for it. Damn women, he thought in frustration. Damn women and damn daughters… why couldn't they just stay little forever? Even his little Mary was growing up on him – in a few hours she'd be turning two and, next thing he'd know, she'd be bargaining curfews with him too. "Don't you dare go boy-crazy on me before you turn thirty, okay?" he told the little girl, who just giggled before abandoning his lap to go search for her discarded toy. Great, he thought. Just what he needed – another traitor. Hopeless, he just huffed, turning to Izzy. "Fine. But you had better head straight here the moment you step foot out of that party. And that had better happen long before dawn," he told his eldest daughter, who smiled.

"Thank you, Daddy," she said, strategically using the mellowest of terms of endearment to end the discussion before he could change his mind.

His lips curled a bit and, although he didn't argue with her any further, Tonks wasn't so lucky. "But if something does go wrong, I'm blaming you, you… bad influence," he told the metamorphagus, who frowned.

"Me? A 'bad influence'?!" she asked in outrage. "You didn't seem to think so when you were practically throwing me into your best friend's arms!"

"Oh, I _did_ think so… but he was practically a little angel romance-wise. He desperately needed somebody to lead him astray," Sirius argued.

"Ah, so that's what I am to him in your view? The little devil standing on his shoulder?"

"If the shoe fits."

"I'll give you the shoe," she said, not so ironically picking up one of Teddy's discarded shoes on the floor (the when he managed to go for more than two hours without prying them off was yet to come) and throwing it at his cousin who, despite not being on his best health, managed to catch it before it did any damage.

"Oi!" he complained, throwing the tiny shoe back onto the floor just as Harry made his way into the room, looking mildly frustrated.

"What the hell, Izzy?!" he asked his sister, who turned around to face him.

"Harry! Little ears in the room," his godmother immediately scolded him, gesturing to Mary and the spot in the middle of the room where Alex stood holding little Teddy under his armpits with some difficulty, unsuccessfully trying to get him to take a few steps (he was desperate for a non-girly playmate that could chase him around and since Teddy didn't seem to be getting there on his own, it seemed he had to intervene).

"Sorry," the so-called Chosen One mumbled in embarrassment. "But I've been standing at the porch for like ten minutes waiting for her to come." He turned to the girl in question. "It's freezing out there! You know, if this is going to take very long, I'll just apparate on my own and you can take the floo with all the ash that comes along with it."

"Hey! It's not my fault Dad decided to get difficult about me going right before I was to step foot out the door," Izzy replied.

"Oi! It's not too late to change my mind," Sirius reminded her.

"Well, if you're going to, can you please do it fast?" Harry asked of his godfather. "I've already told you that I talked to Ginny and she's okay with coming to spend midnight here if you'd rather we stayed. I don't mind either way – I just need to know what to tell her."

"Tell her you're going to Bill's because you're not cool enough for this party, no matter what your godfather says," Tonks suggested.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Not that I use this card often, but one might say that the 'Chosen One' is cool enough for any party."

"Not this one, he's not," the metamorphagus said. "You have to either be married to or parent to someone suffering from Dragon Pox to be welcome here. So, unless there's something you want to tell us, Potter, I suggest you take Izzy and get lost until it's well past midnight."

"Not that _well _past it," Sirius argued. "But fine, go. Just keep an eye out for Izzy here, will you, Harry? Enlist the Weasley boys into the job if you have to. They're bound to be good at scaring the perverts away."

The irony of his words didn't go unnoticed and, for a moment there, Izzy was sure Harry was about to burst into a fit of laughter. Before he could, though she aimed her foot to his shin and kicked him there… hard. He yelped in pain immediately and Tonks, recognizing the action, snorted loudly.

Izzy, in the meanwhile, tried to show a look of sympathy on her face. "Oh, leg cramp? That sucks," she said, as if she had nothing to do with her Harry's sudden bout of pain. Then, turning to her father, she glared. "We really need to have a conversation about my ability to keep an eye out for myself. Do I seem like some airhead to you, Dad?"

Mia rolled her eyes, getting up before making her way to the two teenagers. "Of course you don't, honey. Don't mind your father. What's important is that the two of you have fun and use your heads while doing it," she said, placing a kiss on each of their cheeks. "Now, don't forget to take your heaviest coats. Molly tells me it's very cold where Bill and Fleur live."

"We will," Izzy promised before tilting her head to the left so she could see her father behind her mother's back. "I guess I'll see you next year then, Dad."

"I don't like the sound of that," he grumpily replied.

"Well, then get used to it!" she said, promptly turning to Tonks, who seemed to have been able to snatch Teddy back from Alex's walking training, seeing as the boy was currently sitting on her lap. "Bye, Tonks. Bye Teddy!"

"Bye," the older metamorphagus replied, lifting Teddy's chubby arm and using it to wave. She then turned brought her lips closer to the baby's ear. "Tell your godfather not to forget to plant a good one on Ginny at midnight," she instructed the green little boy, who just gave Harry and Izzy a confused look, as if asking 'What the hell is she saying?!' "Mummy sure won't forget to do the same for Daddy."

Harry groaned. "Merlin… are you going to make a lot of comments like that one when you're officially training me?"

Tonks grinned. "I might try to control myself if you prove to be a good paperwork slave."

Again, a groan was heard as the two of them exited the room, Harry limping as he followed Izzy. "For your information, I ought to apparate to bloody Inverness and dump you there to freeze for that kick you gave me," he said as they made their way down the stairs to the ground floor.

She didn't bother looking back at him as she led the way, busy putting her winter hat and scarf on. "Well, it's not my fault you cannot control yourself. You were about to start giggling like a three-year-old!"

"Well, can you blame me?" he asked, lowering his voice so they wouldn't be heard as they put their cloaks on by the door. "It was ironic hearing your dad asking me to – I quote – 'enlist the Weasley Boys to help me keep perverts away from you'."

She smacked him on the arm before opening the door. "Forgive me if I don't _see _that irony," she said, even though she did see it, 'pervert' reference aside.

He followed her out the door, closing it back behind him once they were out, standing at 12 Grimmauld Place's front porch. "I'm not saying he's some degenerate," he said, referring to George. "An arse, sure, but you have to realize that, in your Dad's eyes, any bloke who might want date you _is_ a pervert."

Izzy groaned, frustrated at the fact that he was probably right. "He's not an arse," she defended George, purposely not referring to his last sentence. "Not at the moment, at least."

Harry scoffed. He liked George. Generally, he really did… but recently, well, he wasn't too happy with his actions of late. "He made you cry. _People _don't make you cry. The fact that he ever did permanently grants him the title of 'arse'," Harry told her.

"Well, I do appreciate the loyalty, Harry, but if anyone can throw around permanent titles for the tears I shed, then person is me. And, for your information, he's done nothing but apologize since it happened – apologies I gladly accepted. You're not supposed to fight my battles, especially the ones I've already put an end to: that's not fair to me or to you. He's your friend too – don't go around shunning him on my stead."

Her brother huffed, pursing his lips. Easier said than done, he thought even though he know she was right about that. "He'd better not do it again," he told her. "Maybe I don't get to fight your battles but, considering he and his brothers promised to tear me a new one if I crush their sister's heart, it's only fair I get the same kind of deal."

"They only said that because you're dating her and, for your information, we're not."

Harry snorted. "You know, that's a pretty flexible word these days – 'dating'. I've seen people use it to describe a lot less than what you told me about the two of you the other day."

Izzy glared. "Let's just go," she mumbled, looking away, unwilling to go on with the conversation.

Her brother's lips curled, feeling somewhat satisfied that he'd hit a nerve. "Careful not to let go until we arrive," he reminded her, giving her his arm to hold on to.

She took it and, knowing the oncoming experience was not a pleasant one, took a long breath before closing her eyes. Then, it happened: she was being pulled, twisted, dragged so fast she couldn't breathe. Once she felt ground under her feet again, she couldn't help letting out a sigh of relief, letting go of Harry's arm for the sake of checking herself for any lost parts… one couldn't blame her for that, considering her history with apparition.

"Uh-oh," she heard Harry saying, finding him looking at her with wide eyes once she turned to him.

"What?" she asked, sounding fearful.

"Your hair… I think it didn't make it through the trip," he said.

Panicked, she reached up for it… only to find her ponytail correctly in place under the winter hat she was wearing. Turning her attention back to Harry, she saw his expression shifting into a disgustingly self-fulfilled grin, which only encouraged her to punch him in the arm harder than she'd already been intending to. "Arse," she said. "You know, that _has _happened before. Me leaving my hair behind, _among other things_. One of the many reasons why I'm beginning to think I'm more suited to Muggle means of travel than Magical Ones. Much more comfortable…"

Harry scoffed. "Yeah, right. Do I need to refer you to our conversation from last week? This is just another one of those I-refuse-to-be-beaten sort of situation – one week for now or a month or maybe a year you'll be trying to apparate again and you won't stop until you can either do it or your mangled body is spread all over Britain."

"Please do go on – I need more mental pictures like that one to motivate my masochistic mind," she said dryly.

He chuckled. "I don't think you need any more motivation that your own hard head."

"Shut up," she mumbled, looking away from him.

It was only then, as she turned away from Harry, that she took in their surroundings. For whatever reason, Harry hadn't quite apparated into the house's backyard or even the front yard for that matter – she could see the lights of it maybe two hundred yards away, downhill from the cliff they were standing on. It was a beautiful view from up there, the dark night only lit up by the house and the one-day-past-full moon: the ground under her feet was covered with snow – not a thick, uniform blanket but a thinner, patchier one that seemed more like white lace against the dark rock of the cliff. The snow went all the way down to the beach below, only a thin strip of sand against which the waves languidly crashed being free of it. The wind was murderously cold, though not as strong as one might think it to be that close to the sea – she might actually be able to stand on the edge for a while taking in the scenery without being knocked down from the cliff by a gust of air. "So, this is where you hid out last year after the Malfoy Manor thing," she said, her words intended for Harry although she didn't turn to face him.

"Yeah," he said, moving to stand by her. "It wasn't too bad. Bill had wards over most of the area, so we could walk around without fearing we might run into a Death Eater. This was my favourite place. We buried Dobby over there," he said, pointing his thumb at somewhere behind them. Izzy turned around and actually saw a raised mound over there with a headstone on it.

She nodded. "It's a nice place," Izzy told him, turning back.

"I thought so," he agreed. "Anyway," he added, changing the subject, "it was actually nice staying here after camping around for so long. Fleur is a bloody brilliant host too. In all, it wasn't home but it was homey, which was more than we'd had in a while." He sighed after saying that and then took a glance at his watch. "Alright, we should head to the house. Everyone is probably already there. We're already late _for whatever reason,_" he added, referring to her delay with Sirius.

"Oh, shut up," she mumbled, rolling her eyes before following him as he lit up his wand and made his way down a narrow, steep path along the Cliffside. Even though it was bloody hard to keep balance and not fall face-first on the floor, the slippery snow adding up to the already-existent steepness, she couldn't help noticing Harry seemed to be enjoying the walk. Must be some sort of nostalgia, she thought, which was the one reason why she didn't berate him for not just dropping them off at the house's door.

By the time they were just reaching the beach, they saw a group of four people at a distance approaching the house from the opposite direction. They couldn't quite tell who it was at first as the flash of white light from their lit-up wands was far too bright for them to see through. However, as they finally reached what could be loosely considered Bill and Fleur's front yard (there was no real fence around it or anything, so Izzy imagined one could state their front yard was everything between the door and the sea) and put out the wands – unnecessary by then, as there was plenty of light coming out of the windows – Izzy finally recognized one of them as Ginny, judging by the long red hair, and later, as they got closer, the other three as Ron, Hermione and, to her own satisfaction, George.

Despite the cold, the distant group didn't go in, clearly waiting for them to join them, judging by the wave Ron gave them.

"Well, look who's decided to show up. I was starting to think you'd forgotten about us," Ginny commented once they reached them.

Harry thrust his thumb Izzy's way as he approached. "Blame her," he said before leaning closer to his girlfriend and greeting her with a kiss on the cheek.

Izzy huffed. "For the last time, it was Dad's fault!" She saw George raining his eyebrows, shooting her a wordless question of 'How?' from where he stood. "He decided that the moment when I was leaving was the right one to be whinny about curfews and lack of thereof," she answered without the need for a spoken request.

"Oh, Ron told me your dad got Dragon Pox right after Christmas," Hermione suddenly said, concerned. "Is he alright?"

"He's fine. Just tired, whiny and bored. He's also extremely outraged that Teddy Lupin caught it too and he's practically breezing through it like it's nothing," Izzy told her.

Harry proudly grinned. "What can I say? The kid is a trooper," he boasted his godson.

"If you asked me, it's the universe throwing Remus a bone," Ron pointed out. "Seems only right after all the crap it's sent his way over the years."

"So, anyway, is everyone in?" Harry asked, nodding at the house.

"Mostly," Ginny told him. "Some of Bill's friends haven't made it yet but no one's really waiting up for them."

"Speaking of which," Ron prompted, rubbing his stomach. "I could use a bite to eat right around now."

Hermione turned to him, a look of disbelief on her face. "You've just had a platter full of cheese pastries before we came out!"

"But they were tiny!"

"They were covering a whole platter! What does it matter how tiny each portion was when you ate them all?" Ginny pointed out.

"Do I have to hand you people a written report on everything I eat?" the other redhead asked, frustrated.

Hermione sighed in defeat, rolling her eyes. "Fine, we can go back in. I suppose I wouldn't mind something warm to drink, anyway. Are you guys coming?"

There was a general murmur of agreement, in which only Izzy didn't take part. "You go on. I think I'll stay out here and explore a little before going in," she said. Somehow, she felt that if she walked into the party at that moment, between all the greetings and inter-crossing conversations, it would be a while before she managed to catch a moment alone with George, who, she hoped, would catch a hint and stay as well.

If he'd caught it or not was something she'd have to wonder about since, before he had a chance to speak, Ginny beat him to it.

"Take your time," Ginny said before turning to her older brother. "Why don't you give Izzy here the grand tour, George? I'm assuming you haven't forgotten all the highlights in just a few minutes."

She didn't give him a chance to refuse – not that he planned to – just walking away towards the door seconds later. Harry, Ron and Hermione followed her into the welcoming house, and only when they were out of sight did George speak.

"So," he started, "just how badly do you want that Grand Tour?"

She smiled, guessing he could tell that 'exploring' had been just an excuse from her part. "I suppose I could live with just a small one. Starting with what the heck that is," she said, pointing at what appeared to be a large pile of something covered with tightly-wound tarp that seemed to be standing halfway between the house and the sea. Approaching it, she noticed, with some annoyance, that the large mound was actually taller than herself.

"Honestly, I have no idea. Ginny stood there for about ten minutes after we arrived poking and prodding – that sheet thing seems to be magically unmovable. Bill said it was a surprise for midnight. I have my suspicions."

"Suspicions?"

"Well, when your brothers barge into your shop and screw you out of galleons-worth of fireworks by guilting you with your 'probation period' and then, in the same day, there's a big pile-shaped surprise waiting to take place on the lawn of one of them, you have to at least suspect that both events are related," George explained.

"Hum… I see," she mumbled. "So, galleons, you say…"

He groaned. "Not enough to be that _whole _pile but enough to annoy me. I couldn't even look at the unpaid bill for the specific amount. I just told Verity to take it straight to Remus's desk – he can have the heart attack himself when he comes back. This probation thing had better be over soon or else it'll drive me bankrupt."

"Well, you _have _been quite the model atoner," she observed, giving him a smile. "And there's always the chance that, next time they try to screw you out of stuff you're selling, you'll threaten to go tattling to your mother. I'm sure she wouldn't approve."

He seemed to actually consider it for a moment. "Well, I'm not usually one for snitching but I guess the threat alone might do the job. Now, all snitching aside, Isabelle, I believe the two of us were in the middle of quite an interesting written discussion when you oh-so-conveniently had to leave because your little brother allegedly walked into your room crying," he said, shooting an accusing look.

She groaned, recalling that they had, indeed, been having a discussion the previous night via papyrus, though in her mind the part he was referring to had been more annoying than interesting. It wasn't that they'd been angry at each other or anything… they were just being themselves, pushing stuff further bit by bit. That time, it had been his letter-related questions, which were usually mild and fun to discuss… until he'd asked a specific question she hadn't really felt like answering. Not that it was too personal or anything, she really just didn't want him to join the flanks of those concerned for her mental health. "For your information, he did come to me crying," she said, starting to walk away from the pile, treading along the beach towards a wide boulder perched on the snow-covered sand. "He'd had a pretty awful nightmare and went to my parents' room but only found Dad in a drug-induced stupor. Mum was still downstairs doing something, so he came to me instead. He actually slept in my bed last night."

"Well, truth as it might be, there's no little boy to save you this time," he informed her, following her. "So, come on, Isabelle. Tell me. What happened on the last week of November that caused you not to write to me?"

She huffed as they reached the boulder in question. "Why do you care? I've told you last night: it's nothing interesting," she argued.

"Then tell me about 'nothing interesting'," he said. "What can I say, Isabelle? I'm intrigued." He really was. During what had to be his tenth read of the Black Chronicles, as he now referred them, the extended gap that took place between the letter of the second-to-last week of November and the first week of December had caught his attention. After checking that, indeed, she'd faithfully written to him every single Saturday since September except for that one, he'd thought he might have just misplaced the letter referring to the 27th of November, only to realize upon carefully examining the contiguous letters that it couldn't be the case since there seemed to be continuity between the two, something that didn't quite fit with a letter in the middle. He'd gone to Ginny first, asking her if something special had happened on the weekend in question, only to have her roll her eyes at him and redirect him back to Izzy – that had only served to intrigue him more.

Banishing the snow covering the boulder away from it with her wand, she decided that was a good place to sit down as any. "Can't you just leave it alone? What's your business asking me why I didn't write to you that one time when you didn't write back on any?!" she asked as she used her arms for thrust while propping herself onto the boulder, facing the sea. The cold was biting so, before putting the wand away, she cast a warming that was bound to be short-lived in that cold on her cloak.

He frowned, moving to stand opposite her. The boulder was slightly elevated, conveniently bringing her up to his eye-level despite the height difference. "Look, I've already told you I'm sorry about that. I'm just curious! Is it really that touchy a matter? Am I getting into something that's very personal here? Or touching a nerve or… stuff like that? Because If I am, then I guess I could just suck it up," he offered, recognizing he really had no business pushing her into talking.

She bit her lip, considering just how easy it would be to say 'yes'. But, damn it, she didn't want to lie to him. It wasn't personal or… sensitive. It was just an overrated bit of stupidity. "No. Look, you're just going to make a big deal out of it like everyone else."

That part had him raising his eyebrows. "Like everyone else, you say? The same way I've been assuming for months that it was no use talking to you because you'd just be a patronizing pain like everyone else? I recall someone telling me that I shouldn't just _assume_ stuff like that."

She felt like growling, frustrated by being caught in a trap that, essentially, she'd been the one to create. "Fine. But if you get all kid gloves around me because of it, then I swear I am throwing your papyrus…"

"You mean _your _papyrus," he corrected.

"My half of our papyrus, then," she said. "I'm throwing my half into the bottom of my trunk and I won't be digging for it out until I've forgotten about this. And, by the way, I have a bloody brilliant memory."

"I'm sure you do. Now, speak." He moved to take a seat by her side on the boulder for the sake of making a point that he wasn't going anywhere.

She took It for what it was and, sighing, wondered where to start. "Remember how I kept mentioning how crappy I am at apparating? And how I kept splinching my hair and nails and little stuff?" He nodded. "Well, it was only a matter of time before I left something important behind.

"You mean you didn't write because you splinched yourself," he guessed, receiving a nod in return. "Merlin. It was so bad that it put you out of commission for a whole day?"

"More like… a week or something."

"What?!"

"Don't even start. I'm fine, I'm alive, I'm in one piece, so _there._ Don't you become another one of those idiots that deeply believes I'm heavily traumatized and thinks that the best way to handle me is to act all weird about it. As in 'let's not mention apparition at all around her in case she has a panic attack or something'. It's annoying!"

"People are actually doing that?" he asked, receiving a nod in return. "After you tell them you're not traumatized?"

"Yes! Like I said, it's annoying."

"Well, I can see that, so give me a little more credit," he told her. "But a week? It was really that bad?"

She shrugged. "I'm told it was. Honestly, I don't remember. I just passed out and woke up three days later in St Mungo's when the worst of it was basically over."

"You mean you actually had to go to St Mungo's?" he asked, alarmed. "Madam Pomfrey couldn't fix it?"

"Well, from what I'm told, she _could_ have but she didn't feel comfortable with administering that much Skele-Gro without hospital-grade sedation involved," she informed him. "Apparently, it would be pretty uncomfortable – and by uncomfortable I mean downright excruciating – re-growing so many bones without being knocked out."

His eyes widened. "Re-growing? You mean you splinched…"

"Bones? Yeah, a bunch of them." According to the healers, more like about 40% of the bone matter in her body, but who was counting? "Nasty, isn't it?"

"That's putting it lightly! And you didn't feel a thing? At all? Not even when it first happened?"

She shook her head. "No. I just… blacked out. The last thing I remember is disapparating and then… bam, I was in the hospital. Thank Merlin. Ginny tells me it was a complete freak show when it happened. She and Harry are practically the only ones who don't clam up about it. Anyway, you may notice that I never mention apparition lessons in my letters again after this – that's because Wilkie Twycross and McGonagall thought I should 'take a break' from them. They didn't think I was on the right mind-set to take them."

"And were you?"

Of course she wasn't. He'd been ignoring her and she'd been worrying about that non-stop. She wasn't about to tell him that, though – she didn't need him agonizing over the fact that he might have indirectly nearly gotten her killed. So, she shrugged like she didn't know. "Hermione blames it on stress from the NEWTs. I think she may be mixing my mind up with hers."

George chuckled. "Yeah. Only she would stress about NEWTs to the point of splinching nearly six months in advance," he agreed. "So, anyway, are you going to try again? When you get into the right mind-set, I mean."

She shrugged. "I suppose a normal person might take what happened as a sign that they're just not made for apparition… Harry tells me I won't, though. He seems to think I'm stubborn to the point of madness."

"Hey, trying again wouldn't be madness. As long as you took special care about focusing on not splinching and stuff… I'm sure you could do it."

Izzy chuckled. "I'll think about it. In any case, I'd better not become the butt of jokes about my lack of ability to apparate the way Charlie still is about failing at his first apparition test," she warned him.

George rolled his eyes. "Okay, first, I'd never do that to you. Second, I think I'm done teasing Charlie about that as well. It'd be a bit… bad if I did."

Izzy raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean 'bad'?"

His lips curled a bit. "You may not realize it but, by asking me that, you're essentially asking me to tell you a big secret of mine."

"A big secret? How big?"

"Big enough that only myself, Fred and a third party that is professionally bound to secrecy know about it," he told her.

"Professionally bound to secrecy? What? Like a healer?"

"Something of that sort," he confirmed.

She narrowed her eyes. "All of a sudden I'm not liking this at all."

"I didn't mean an actual healer. I meant a kind of professional secrecy like that. As in the person in question not being allowed to discuss individual cases and stuff like that," he explained.

"And what, might I ask, is this individual case about?" she asked.

"Didn't you hear the part about it being a big secret and all? Are you trying to gather dirt on me?"

"Hey, I've just told you about my apparition problems. And I've been practically mailing you my diary for months. You have plenty of dirt on me!"

"Oh, yeah. Like that slightly worrisome rant you wrote about how you think that whomever came up with the idea that lemon had a place in dessertery should be beaten and fed to a dragon because you found some in your strawberry pie?"

She narrowed her eyes. "It was strawberry cheesecake and it was completely ruined! Why would anyone think to put lemon in something that's supposed to be sweet?!" she said in complete disbelief. "It's bitter! Isn't that proof enough that it has no place there?!"

George chuckled. Clearly, she had a very well-formed opinion on the matter. He wasn't about to go against her on it.

"Anyway," she continued, settling herself back. "I believe you were about to tell me a secret."

"I believe you're recalling it wrong."

"No, I'm not. Because if I were recalling it wrong and you were just mentioning a secret and basically teasing me about it when, in fact, you weren't planning to reveal it, that would make you kind of a jerk, which I believe you've been trying very hard not to be lately. So, George, are you or are you not trying not to be a jerk?" She gave him a pointed look, daring him to deny it.

He eyed her with raised eyebrows for a long moment. "You drive a hard bargain, Isabelle," he told her.

She smiled. "Yes, I do."

"Alright, I suppose you're trustworthy enough. But this had better never, ever reach anybody's ears, especially Charlie's. I'd never hear the end of it if it did," he warned.

"I do know what the meaning of a secret is, George," she said. "Spit it out. What exactly was that third party professionally bound to secrecy if it wasn't a Healer?"

"A Ministry official. Like I said, they are not allowed to discuss individual cases for privacy reasons," he said.

She narrowed her eyes. "If you tell me this was all about you being secretly late paying taxes or something equally pointless, I'm going to kill you."

"It depends… Do you think my telling everyone I passed my apparition exam at the first attempt when I actually didn't is pointless material?"

Izzy stared at him for a few moments. "No. I think it's bullshit. As if I don't remember how annoying you and Fred were that summer… You kept apparating everywhere just to remind us you could!"

"No. _Fred _kept apparating everywhere… I just went along for the ride. Do you actually remember me apparating anywhere alone back then?"

"That doesn't have to mean anything. Just because I didn't see it, doesn't mean it didn't happen," she replied. "You're just making that up to make me feel better about my monumental lack of talent for apparition, aren't you?"

"Of course not! I didn't pass it – I swear! Fred and I only managed to hide it because, with the Triwizard Tournament going on, the test over at Hogwarts got scheduled too soon for us to take it, so we had to get an individual test in the beginning of the summer. No one but Wilkie Twycross, who couldn't discuss it with anyone else, was there to see it."

She still seemed suspicious. "And if I asked for some proof…"

He shrugged. "I guess I could show you the certificate I was given when I finally passed," he said. "You'll see it's dated from late August, not late June like you would expect."

So there was paperwork involved, she thought. Oh, well, she didn't think he'd go as far as to forge it… "So, what did you leave behind, then? I'm assuming that's why you didn't pass – splinching."

"You assume correctly. It was a wisdom tooth," he said, making her raise her eyebrows. "What? It was bothering me! I guess I got distracted by it and it ended up staying behind. And, honestly, I wanted it out, anyway, so it shouldn't count as splinching, in any case. But it did and I got held up for another two months, during which Fred covered for me."

"But why? Was it so bad not passing?"

"Well, yeah. In case you don't know, Fred and I were pretty stellar during apparition lessons, so we figured the licenses were already in the bag before we even went for the test, which led us to making the stupid mistake of mocking Charlie about not passing at his first try in advance."

"And then you failed."

"And then I failed…" he confirmed. "It'd be completely humiliating to admit we were wrong… or, well, _I _was wrong."

Izzy snorted. "You're an idiot, you know? You and Fred were just asking _not _to pass – divine retribution if I've ever seen it. It's a wonder he didn't get held back too."

"I guess he needed the luck more than I did," he mumbled. Not in all ways that mattered, though. Fred had gotten himself a short, eventful life while George still had a future ahead of him, uncertain as it might be.

"Speaking of luck," Izzy said, looking at the house over her shoulder. "It's a wonder nobody's shown up to check if we got lost or something."

He had little doubt that might have something to do with Ginny working her magic to cover for them. "It'd probably be pushing it if we stayed here much longer, wouldn't it?"

"Definitely. They might just come out to find our fatally frozen bodies," she said.

George nodded, getting up. "Yeah, I guess the cold might be a problem. Also, if I don't show my face anytime soon, I might be accused of running out on the party."

"Well, we wouldn't want you to have your probation extended, would we?" she said, taking the hand he was offering her for support while climbing down from the rock.

They made their way to the comfortable warmth of the house silently, only to find the get-together going lively inside. If their absence was noticed by anyone but those who'd been outside with them before, it wasn't mentioned by anybody – to George, that could only mean his brothers had been otherwise distracted. He had no doubt in his mind that, had they gotten a wind that he was outside alone with a _girl, _they'd have had a field day teasing him about it.

Like Tonks had said, there weren't too many guests besides the Weasleys themselves and the always present Izzy, Harry and Hermione: maybe more than half a dozen but certainly not twice that number. Izzy didn't recognize most of them which she supposed went down to the fact that they were either co-workers or old classmates of Bill's – indeed, he and Charlie (also Percy, on occasion) seemed to be the ones socializing with them the most.

All the while, Fleur gracefully floated around playing the perfect hostess, greeting guests, refilling platters with bite-sized French delicacies Ron and Charlie seemed to gobble up by the pound and making small talk, creating a welcoming, relaxed environment in the house. She did it with such an ease and grace that would either make Molly Weasley endlessly proud or green with envy. Ginny seemed to think (maybe hope) it would be the latter that applied: that way, Fleur could make up for her own faults in the domestic front, she'd said.

The rest of the night passed in a rush in Izzy's mind. Sitting with the usual group of Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione and George, she heard it as they talked about the most varied subjects, ranging from the funniest, such as Ron's experience with meeting Hermione's extended family just before Christmas (including his wonder and bafflement at various Muggle habits), to the most boring ones, namely the older girl naming all the reasons why the boys in the group should take the time to sit in for their NEWTs even if they weren't enrolled in school anymore.

In all, when they heard Bill calling everyone's attention from the centre of the room because it was close to midnight, the passing of time caught them all by surprise.

"Alright, everyone!" Bill shouted, catching everyone's attention. "It's ten minutes 'till the New Year. Everyone get outside! We've got something prepared there for the occasion."

While there were a handful of complaints concerning the fact that it was below zero outside, soon enough everyone was following Bill out the door, Izzy and George remaining the last ones to go.

Something had changed the moment Bill had mentioned how near the end of year was – Izzy had seen it on George's face almost immediately. The smile he'd had most of the night had vanished, being replaced by a solemn look that made her somewhat afraid.

"Are you alright?" she asked as she finished putting her winter cloak on by the door.

He turned to her sharply, not in a threatening way like he was angry, but as if he'd just been suddenly awoken from a dream. "What?"

"I asked if you were alright. You look… thoughtful." _Troubled, haunted, dangerously close to melancholic_, she added in her mind. And, worse, it had happened in the blink of an eye.

"It's nothing. I'm alright," he said.

She raised one eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

He nodded and, maybe to get her to drop the subject, draw his lips up in a smile before opening the door for her. "Come on. Let's see what Bill's got planned out there," he told her, urging her to step out.

She sighed. The smile was fake – she had no doubt of it. But still, she allowed herself to just nod and go along with it – the fact that he was bothering to try and reassure her had to at least be a sign that he was still trying.

Outside, it seemed the big pile-shaped mystery under the sheet had been revealed: apparently, it was just a big pile of lumber that was now lit with fire, forming a large bonfire that most of the guests were now surrounding, likely thankful for the heat source. It was actually quite beautiful, Izzy thought, the orange flames contrasting with the thin snow covering the sand, all of it set against the dark sky that was only lit by the distant moon.

She glanced at George, standing close by her side, and saw that his eyes were also on the bonfire, though she could tell his mind was, again, elsewhere. There was the solemn look again, she thought, wondering what sort of thoughts were running around his head. Part of her felt like telling him to stop it but another knew there would be no point in trying to control his mind. The most she could do was stand with him and let him know she was there if he wanted to talk about it.

As such, she silently took a sideways step that brought them so close to each other their shoulders were almost rubbing. They didn't say another word during those last five minutes of the year, instead just watching – at least in Izzy's case – people's antics by the beach. Soon enough, the countdown started over there, Bill guiding himself by his watch as he counted back the seconds out loud.

He'd barely had a chance to shout 'Happy New Year' when a loud blast announced that Charlie had sent the fireworks off (likely the ones George had been 'screwed out of' that morning). Around the bonfire, people not so surprisingly kissed, hugged and shouted as they watched the explosions go off in the sky, loudly and brightly. All the while, detached from the crowd, there was only silence between George and Izzy.

It felt wrong.

George should be over there. He should have been the one setting the fireworks off. He should have been down there to help his brothers when, not thirty seconds after midnight, they jumped Percy (much to his horror), grabbed him by his arms and legs and carried him all the way to the shore, ultimately throwing him into the icy water in a sort of New Year's baptism ritual. But he wasn't. He was just standing there, probably poisoning himself with his own thoughts.

She was about to try and save him from himself when he finally spoke.

"I thought it would be more impressive," he observed. "The end of what, by my standards, was the worst year in the history of the world."

Izzy stared at him for a few seconds. She wasn't sure how to describe his expression… maybe a mix of sadness, resignation and absentmindedness. But, also, there was something good in it – that wasn't the part she couldn't quite put a finger on. It wasn't quite genuine happiness – maybe relief of some sort. Then again, she might be imagining it – everything seemed much more positive under the explosion of lights that was currently covering the sky. "You've got fireworks," she told him. "What else did you want? A parade? A ceremonial effigy burning?"

"We've got the fire already," he offered.

"We do," she agreed. "What were you thinking just now?" she asked without thinking. She just couldn't help it.

He sighed. "Just now? What I've just told you, I guess."

"And before?"

"Loads of things. Why do you ask, Isabelle?"

She hesitated before answering. "Sometimes it scares me when you think," she told him.

He just looked at her for a long time before saying anything. "Well… I'd offer to quit thinking but that might not work out so well in a daily basis."

She looked down, knowing he did have a good point. "I know. But sometimes you just look so… haunted when you do… I wish you'd just say whatever is going through your mind out loud so I could tell you that you're wrong."

"And when I'm not wrong?"

She shrugged. "Say it anyway. I'll figure something out."

He didn't reply for a long time, instead turning to face the fading fireworks on the sky. Silence reigned for maybe two or three minutes.

"I was thinking this is going to be my first whole year without Fred," he told her. "And it feels… lonely to think of it like that. The first year without Fred… I don't want this year to be _that _year. Fred wouldn't want this year to be that year either."

Izzy was confused. There was nothing in the world she wished more at that moment than assuring him that the current year wouldn't be the first one without Fred. But it would be, wouldn't it? Of course it would be. Fred had died – every year after the past year would be a year passed without him in it. So, what on Earth could she tell him? To get used to it? Because that was just wrong. "George, I'm not sure…"

"Okay, before you think I've lost my mind for good – I'm not planning to lose my way trying to bring him back or anything. I am perfectly aware that's impossible. But still… him not being here is not what I want to label this year with. That just feels like… I dunno, setting myself up for everything to go to hell."

That actually made a lot of sense. "Fair enough. What else do you want to remember it by, then?" she asked.

"I want this to be the year when I finally keep my New Year's resolutions," he said.

She felt her lips starting to curl. "Really? That's such big a deal? Are you really that bad at keeping them?"

"Usually. In my defence, I haven't been making them that long – maybe a couple of years… but, yeah, there's always one thing or two that I leave hanging."

"Have you thought that maybe you're being a bit too ambitious in your resolutions?"

"Yeah… but I quickly realized that I'm not," he declared. "I'm just… wasting time. And I need to stop… eventually."

She raised her eyebrows. "Need to stop wasting time _eventually_? Sounds like classic procrastination if you asked me," she told him.

George chuckled humourlessly. "You'd think so, wouldn't you? But it's not. Not in this case, anyway."

"What's so special about this case?"

He shrugged. "It's complicated. I just know that if I did it right now, I'd muck it up in a spectacular manner."

"Maybe you wouldn't," she said.

"But probably I would. I don't want to risk it. Not _this_. Not until I've had a little more time to… sort myself out."

"It's that important? This resolution of yours?"

"It's the best thing I have to look forward to right now," he told her, looking her in the eyes in such a fashion that made her feel weak on the knees.

The question sounded in her mind before she could stop herself. Could be referring to _them_? Could that be his resolution? For that to be the year when he made the definite move? For the recently-past year to be the last one when they let fate tear them apart?

"Always go positive," he told her, as if reading her mind.

She furrowed her brows. "What?"

"On the day of the battle, I told you to always go positive when you have doubts about something I say," he reminded her. "It still applies, Isabelle."

Her heart nearly stopped inside her chest. It was the first time he'd ever addressed _that _conversation since they'd rekindled their friendship. I hadn't come up once in one of their written conversations or spoken ones and, now that it did, he'd gone straight to the part that had kept her awake at night. To this day, she still wasn't completely so how much he'd meant by that – when she'd been running for her life from Death Eaters, she'd allowed herself to believe it could extend to a love declaration. Why not? Her life had been hanging by a thread. She could have used something positive at that moment and that had been it.

But now she wasn't being chased for her life. Now, she was standing there and George was telling her the exact same thing – the difference was that, that time, she didn't care about how much he was trying to stretch the 'always go positive' notion. She only cared that it meant he hadn't forgotten about it. The book was still open for them and – maybe, just maybe – George was determined to reach the end of that volume and move on to the sequel without skipping through the chapters in a half-assed read.

"So, a year, you say?" she asked, a smile playing on her lips.

"Doesn't have to be _a year_," he told her. "More like… if one year from today the two of us are standing here – here or wherever we choose to celebrate New Year's – and I'm still wasting time, then you're allowed… no, you're _expected_ to make me regret it. No excuses… well, except circumstances beyond my control."

"Such as…"

He looked away, scratching the back of his head in thought for a moment. "Extended coma, extended memory loss… something like that." He looked back at her. "Is that okay with you?"

She eyed him for a long moment in silence, feeling like everything that had just been said was almost too good to be truth. "Yes," she finally agreed, not willing to care. "Yes, that is."

He smiled widely and so did she before turning, shoulder to shoulder, to face the distant bonfire at the beach. Their hands accidentally rubbed for a moment but then, not do accidentally, didn't pull away, slowly coming together in a silent hold.

At that moment – at that very moment – there was no doubt in Izzy's mind that one year from then the two of them would be standing together wherever it was they decided to spend New Year's Eve. And, when that happened, they'd be far more than two friends striking a bargain.

They'd be two people who were done with wasting time.

**A/N2: Well, I hope you liked it. My cast and I hope you did. Feedback is very welcome! Review!**


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